OK,  I understand now why you want getHumanishName to be static and accept a string.  I still think the instance method form would also be useful because most uses of it will have a URIish instance object on hand that they want the humanish name off of.

Regarding the name of the method, I guess we can keep it getHumanishName.  After thinking about the other suggestions I gave, they are perhaps worse than getHumanishName when it comes to describing their intended result.