The angel does not just name Ishmael. He predicts him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 16:12 lets the prophecy roll out in the open: he shall be like the wild ass among men, his hand against his adversaries, their hands raised against him, and in the presence of all his brethren shall he dwell.
The Aramaic adds a little etymological wink — yitharbeb, Arabized — turning the verb to dwell into a play on the future Arab nations that will descend from him.
But the image that carries the verse is the pereh adam, the wild ass of a man. This is not a slur in the ancient desert imagination. The wild ass was the free creature par excellence — untamed, fast, preferring the open country to the corral. The prophecy promises Ishmael a life of fierce independence. He will contest, and he will be contested. He will not live quietly fenced. And still, surprisingly, the verse ends with before all his brethren shall he dwell — not exiled, not swallowed, but present among his kin.
The Maggid reads this as the angel giving Hagar a realistic blessing. She is not being promised a gentle son. She is being promised a surviving son — one who will always be at the friction points of history but will never be erased from it (Genesis 16:12). A mother in the wilderness gets told, in one sentence, that her boy will live, that he will fight, and that he will stand on his own feet in the family of nations. Sometimes the kindest truth heaven can tell a frightened mother is simply: he will be there.