nameintended

Nameintended is a concept used in discussions of naming, design, and data semantics to describe the alignment between a name and its intended use or audience. It is not a formal standard but a descriptive term for practices that prioritize communicative accuracy in naming.

Origin and scope: The term emerged in conversations about how names influence comprehension, discoverability, and maintenance. Nameintended guides how teams select identifiers for APIs, database schemas, user interfaces, and documentation, with a focus on describing function and scope rather than signaling style alone.

Principles and guidelines: Names should be descriptive of function, target the intended user or developer audience, convey scope, be consistent with existing conventions, and avoid ambiguity. They should be relatively stable over time to support maintainability. The approach encourages evaluating names through reviews or user feedback and resisting marketing-driven deviations that reduce clarity.

Applications and examples: In APIs, a name like getUserList aligns with the intended operation and returned resource, whereas a vague label may obscure purpose. In databases, column names such as user_email clearly indicate content. In user interfaces, labels like "Export as CSV" communicate the action and result, reducing guesswork for users.

Relation to related concepts: Nameintended complements naming conventions, semantic naming, and disambiguation practices, intersecting with usability and information architecture. Critics argue that strict adherence can clash with branding or legacy naming.

Status: The term is primarily used in theoretical or practice-oriented discussions and may not have formal adoption in standard documentation or industry-wide guidelines.