element names accessible?

[Robert A. (Bob) Morris]

I have several different patterns of build files, each applicable to
several projects. I'd like to have to edit only the project name to
reuse the build. The way that comes to mind is to refer to the project
name with a variable, which would reduce me to two edits, one for the
project element name attribute, and one for the variable. But I wonder
if element data, e.g. the name attribute, is available without
explicitly copying it by hand in the file.

If yes, did I miss this in the documentation?