Complementing for JPA 2.1
As of JPA 2.1 it is possible to define named queries programmatically.
This can be achieved using entityManagerFactory.addNamedQuery(String name, Query)
.
Example:
Query q = this.em.createQuery("SELECT a FROM Book b JOIN b.authors a WHERE b.title LIKE :title GROUP BY a");
this.em.getEntityManagerFactory().addNamedQuery("selectAuthorOfBook", q);
// then use like any namedQuery
Reference here
This can be useful, for instance, if you have the orderby field defined as a application parameter. So, when the application starts up or on the first run of the query, you could define the NamedQuery with the defined OrderBy field.
On the other side, if your OrderBy can be changed anytime (or changes a lot), then you need dynamic queries instead of NamedQuery (static). It would not worth to (re)create a NamedQuery every time (by performance).