A naming convention is a
convention
Convention may refer to:
* Convention (norm), a custom or tradition, a standard of presentation or conduct
** Treaty, an agreement in international law
* Convention (meeting), meeting of a (usually large) group of individuals and/or companies in a ...
(generally agreed scheme) for naming things. Conventions differ in their intents, which may include to:
* Allow useful information to be deduced from the names based on regularities. For instance, in
Manhattan, streets are consecutively numbered; with east–west streets called "Streets" and north–south streets called "Avenues".
* Show relationships, and in most personal naming conventions
* Ensure that each name is unique for same scope
Use cases
Well-chosen naming conventions aid the casual user in navigating and searching larger structures. Several areas where naming conventions are commonly used include:
* In
astronomy,
planetary nomenclature
* In
classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
,
Roman naming conventions
* In
computer programming,
identifier naming conventions
* In
computer networking,
naming scheme
In computing, naming schemes are often used for objects connected into computer networks.
Naming schemes in computing
Server naming is a common tradition. It makes it more convenient to refer to a machine by name than by its IP address.
The CIA n ...
* In humans,
naming offspring
* In industry,
product naming conventions
* In the sciences,
systematic names for a variety of things
Examples
Examples of naming conventions may include:
* Children's names may be alphabetical by birth order. In some Asian cultures, siblings commonly share a
middle name. In many cultures the son is usually named after the father or grandfather. In other cultures, the name may include the place of residence.
denotes social rank.
* Developers of database schemas, program-name terminology and ontologies may apply a common set of labeling conventions for naming representational entities in their representational artefacts, i.e. conventions outlined or endorsed by terminology-regulatory bodies or by policy providers such as ISO or the
OBO Foundry.
* The names of universities can commemorate founders, patrons or relevant monarchs: note for example
Lomonosov Moscow State University,
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...
,
Victoria University of Wellington, or
Johns Hopkins University. A Latinate version confers extra class – note ''Alma Mater Rudolphina'' for the
University of Vienna or ''Universitas Complutensis'' for the
Complutense University of Madrid.
* Large corporate, university, or government campuses may name rooms within their buildings to help orient tenants and visitors.
* Products.
Automobiles typically have a binomial name, a "make" (manufacturer) and a "model", in addition to a model year. Computers, and computer programs, often have increasing numbers in their names to signify the successive generations.
* School courses: an abbreviation for the subject area and then a number ordered by increasing level of difficulty.
* Shipping lines often use a distinct naming convention to make their ships more recognisable and their names easier to remember.
* Virtually all organizations that assign names or numbers follow some convention in generating these identifiers (e.g.
phone numbers,
bank accounts, government IDs,
credit cards
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...
, etc.).
References
{{reflist
External links
American Name SocietyPromote
onomastics
Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An ''orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study.
Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, w ...
, the study of names and naming practices, both in the United States and abroad.
Namingschemes.comA wiki dedicated to the education and sharing of naming schemes.
The application of unified labeling or naming conventions in terminology and
ontology engineering
In computer science, information science and systems engineering, ontology engineering is a field which studies the methods and methodologies for building ontologies, which encompasses a representation, formal naming and definition of the categori ...
will help to harmonize the appearance and increase the robustness of symbolic representational units such as ontologic class and relation names within the orthogonal set of OBO Foundry ontologies. A full free access paper with the naming conventions is accessible online under http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/10/125