A naming convention is a convention

Convention (norm)

A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom....

 for naming things. The intent is to allow useful information to be deduced from the names based on regularities. For instance, in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, streets are numbered, with East-West streets being called "Streets" and North-South streets called "Avenues".

Use cases

Well-chosen naming conventions aid the casual user in navigating larger structures. Several areas where naming conventions are commonly used include:

• In computer programming
  Computer programming
  Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
  
  , identifier naming convention
  Naming conventions (programming)
  In computer programming, a naming convention is a set of rules for choosing the character sequence to be used for identifiers which denote variables, types and functions etc...
  
  s
• In the sciences, systematic name
  Systematic name
  A systematic name is a name given in a systematic way to one unique group, organism, object or chemical substance, out of a specific population or collection...
  
  s for a variety of things
• In astronomy
  Astronomy
  Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
  
  , planetary nomenclature
  Planetary nomenclature
  Planetary nomenclature, like terrestrial nomenclature, is a system of uniquely identifying features on the surface of a planet or natural satellite so that the features can be easily located, described, and discussed. The task of assigning official names to features is taken up by the International...
  
  
• In classics
  Classics
  Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
  
  , Roman naming conventions
• In industry, product naming convention
  Product naming convention
  -Introduction:A product naming convention is a process of product or good description or titling. Consistent use of alphanumeric characters and separating devices defines a Naming convention...
  
  s

Examples

A naming convention may be followed when:

• Large corporate, university, or government campuses may name rooms within the buildings to help orient tenants and visitors.

• Children's names may be alphabetical by birth order. In some Asian cultures, siblings commonly share a middle name
  Middle name
  People's names in several cultures include one or more additional names placed between the first given name and the surname. In Canada and the United States all such names are specifically referred to as middle name; in most European countries they would simply be regarded as second, third, etc....
  
  . In many cultures the son is usually named after the father or grandfather. In other cultures, the name may include the place of residence. Roman naming convention denotes social rank.
• Products. Automobile
  Automobile
  An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
  
  s 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.
• Virtually all organizations that assign names or numbers follow some convention in generating these identifiers (e.g. phone numbers, bank account
  Bank account
  A Bank account is a financial account recording the financial transactions between the customer and the bank and the resulting financial position of the customer with the bank .-Account types:...
  
  s, government IDs, credit cards, etc.).

External links

• American Name Society Promote onomastics
  Onomastics
  Onomastics or onomatology is the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names. The words are from the Greek: "ὀνομαστικός" , "of or belonging to naming" and "ὀνοματολογία" , from "ὄνομα" "name". Toponymy or toponomastics, the study of place names, is one of the principal branches of...
  
  , the study of names and naming practices, both in the United States and abroad.
• Namingschemes.com A wiki dedicated to the education and sharing of naming schemes.
• Ontology Naming Conventions The application of unified labeling or naming conventions in ontology engineering
  Ontology engineering
  Ontology engineering in computer science and information science is a new field, which studies the methods and methodologies for building ontologies: formal representations of a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts....
  
  will help to harmonize the appearance and increase the robustness of ontological representational units such as 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