If you cannot connect to your samba server or share using the name BUT when using the ip address, this might help:

The netbios name has to be set manually.
For this purpose edit the global section in [/etc/samba/] smb.conf

netbios name = SERVERNAME
server string = Server Description

This one worked for me on a openSUSE 10.2 sytem with a samba 3.0.x release.