So I downloaded QGIS and the 2014 TIGER/Line Shapefiles for US counties from ftp://ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2014/COUNTY/
When I open the shapefiles up in QGIS I don't see any of the county names. Does the TIGER data simply not include county names or is there some option in QGIS that I'm just unaware of?
The data is in the Shapefile and the packaged dbf file. In QGIS, you can use the Attribute Table or Identify Feature tools to expose these attributes. Animated GIF below here: http://i.imgur.com/lSXp4Qr.gif
Skram has a good answer. I would add that if you are simply trying to label your counties, watch this GIF: Add Labels
