Style guide for database metadata naming

Question

We want to establish some database metadata naming rules in our new project. For example:

• tables are named as nouns in a plural form (courses, books, lessons)
• if present, an adjective goes before a noun in a table name and is separated by an underscore (red_books, new_lessons)
• table index column is always named id
• foreign key names are derived from a table name with suffix _id (books_id, red_books_id)
• so on

Does someone know any guide like this?

Answer 1

that sounds reasonable, so do what works for you. Having a formal standard is the way to go, whatever it is. What works for you and your database is not necessarily what will work for someone else. For example, if I have 8,000+ tables, then I will have a different way to name them, possibly prefix them with a module/area, etc. should you follow that standard?

Answer 2

There's some documentation to be found on SQL naming conventions. Here's one, for example

Also never use a dot '.' in any SQL server object name as this will break a number of tools, including Microsoft's own SqlBulkCopy class.

Answer 3

There are good links and discussion in this question:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7662/database-table-and-column-naming-conventions

You can probably take your pick of the styles there.