Genesis 2:19

And the Lord God created from the earth every beast of the field, and every fowl of the heavens, and brought them to Adam, to see by what name he would call it. And whatever Adam called the living animal, that was its name.

AND WHATSOEVER ‘YIKRA LO HA’ADAM NEFESH CHAYAH’ (THE MAN WOULD CALL EVERY LIVING CREATURE). Rashi comments: “Invert [the phrasing of the sentence] and explain it thus: and every living creature to which Adam would give a name, that should remain its name forever.” And Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said that the letter lamed of the phrase, that the man called ‘lo’ (it), is carried forward [to the word nefesh, making it lenefesh (to the creature), thus]: and whatever the man called to every living creature, that was to be its name.
It is possible that the phrase be explained in connection with the matter of “the help” that G-d gave to Adam, and the meaning is that ha’adam nefesh chayah (man is a living soul), as it is said, And man became a living soul, and it is as I have explained it there. And He brought before him all species so that every one of them unto which Adam would give a name and say that it is a living soul like himself, that would remain its name and be a help to him. So Adam gave names to all, but as for himself he found no help which he would be able to call “a living soul” like his own name.

ויצר ה' אלוקים מן האדמה כל חית השדה, G’d now provided these creatures with their final shape, putting the “finishing touches” on them, so to speak. At that stage of the earth’s condition, the original product which the earth had produced, not based on seed which contains all the genetic material in microscopic form, was not adequate to produce the final product without input by G’d, personally.

ויבא אל האדם, in order for man to realise there was a need for an additional phenomenon, seeing that amongst the existing ones none met his need for a partner.

לראות מה יקרא לו, so that he would see which name would be appropriate for each creature, based on the specific tasks they performed in the universe.

נפש חיה הוא שמו, its name would provide all of us with a clue as to its function in G’d’s scheme of things. The essence of each animal, נפש, would be revealed by its activity on earth.

ויצר, this time the word is spelled with only a single letter י, not as in verse 7. In other words, a letter י' which is part of the root of the verb יצר has been omitted from the written text of the Torah. The meaning of the line is: “seeing that G’d had already formed from the earth all the living creatures and all the fowl of the sky, etc.” The expression חית השדה in our verse includes also all the domesticated mammals. This is clear from verse 20, where Adam is portrayed as naming all of them. All of these creatures had been created before Adam had been created. G’d told Adam that he would have authority over all these creatures. He was challenged to name them in accordance with the special qualities each animal possessed; their characteristics should be alluded to in their names.

לראות, G’d did not need to see how clever Adam was. The exercise was designed to show his descendants what a brilliant forbear they had had, someone who had at one glance been able to determine the essence of each of these creatures. Adam was clever enough to divine the nature of the birds which, though described in 1,20 as having been produced by the waters, are treated in our verse here as if they had been products of the earth (or even of the sky). The Talmud, which describes the origin of the birds as being puddles of water, i.e. combination of water and earth, did not tell us anything Adam had not known already and taken into consideration when naming the birds. (Chulin 26) Alternately, the reason the Torah speaks of G’d having fashioned all the categories of creatures listed in our verse as stemming מן האדמה, is that G’d brought all of these creatures to Adam from the earth, seeing that this was the habitat on which all these creatures developed to their maturity. Proof is the fact that even the birds which fly in the sky are described not as flying in the sky, in the atmosphere, but as flying over the ארץ, emphasising that they too are an integral part of “earth” as opposed to the fish whose habitat is not “earth” but the waters. When fish leave that habitat they die. Seeing that this is so, G’d could not parade them in front of Adam who was on land and could not determine the nature of the various water-based creatures from his present vantage point. As a result, the names of fish actually vary, depending in which ocean they are found, and in what climates they make their habitat.