Why is a Name important… and why is it’s spelling equally so!
Because you need to find it again…
…And you will later look for (or refer to) it by the name you remember. You will find the item only if it is tagged and stored in the system with the same name, spelt exactly the way you remember. The ‘system’ will not be able to help you find what you are looking for, if even one character is different. The system could be another person or a computer file storage system. And remember, even a blank space is a character for a computer system.
Unclear or uncertain names are the single most common cause for miscommunication between people – resulting in waste of time, conflicts, costly mistakes, and loss of brand value.
Which aspects of a Name make its use elegant and effective?
| Brevity | Not a mouthful, easy to pinpoint in a jiffy |
| Ease in spell | Phonetic, commonly known spelling, distinct and easy even to tell someone else on the phone |
| Relevance | Relevance to entity and its contents, indicative of meaning, associative, intuitive to search, easy to recall |
| Uniqueness | Makes it possible to identify accurately and precisely, usually forced if used on a computer system |
| Sort-ability | Gives the natural sequence in a list we might hold conceptually, easier to find and analyze |
| Structure | Indicates ontology, hierarchy (and therefore context), sets and subsets |
Which name-aspects can be most significant for various kinds of ‘things’?
- For an email id – Brevity, Ease in spelling, Relevance
- For a person’s name – Ease in spelling, Uniqueness
- For a Brand – Relevance, Uniqueness
- For a computer file/folder name – Brevity, Relevance, Uniqueness, Sortability, Structure
- For a Concept – Relevance, Uniqueness
- … and the list could go on.
Names have a purpose. Use them effectively as you engineer knowledge.
Happy Naming! 🙂
Mukul's Blog 