entityNames

Entity names are textual identifiers used to refer to entities in information systems. They include the names of persons, organizations, places, products, and other concepts. In databases, knowledge graphs, and natural language processing, entity names provide human-readable labels that accompany stable identifiers such as IDs, URIs, or GUIDs.

In knowledge graphs and semantic models, an entity name is a label linked to an entity node, while the node’s true identity is captured by a canonical identifier. An entity may have multiple names, including aliases, nicknames, and multilingual variants. Keeping track of provenance and versioning helps maintain data quality as names change.

Managing entity names involves normalization, disambiguation, and localization. Normalization reduces variants through case folding and punctuation handling; disambiguation uses context, type, and relationships to distinguish similarly named entities; aliases are mapped to a single canonical entity.

Common challenges include name collisions, ambiguity across languages, transliteration, and changes over time. Privacy, branding, and regulatory concerns can also shape how names are stored and displayed. Effective practices include clear naming conventions, consistent encoding, and alignment with unique identifiers.

Applications encompass search and retrieval, information extraction, data integration, and knowledge-base construction through entity linking and resolution. See also named entities, entity identifiers, aliases, and disambiguation.