Singular or plural database table names? [duplicate]

Answer 1

The most important thing is to be consistent in your usage. It is annoying to have to remember which tables are plurals and which are not. Same thing with your field names, pick one stadard and use it. Don't make the poor developers have to determine if this table uses person_id or personid or peopleid or person$id, etc. It is amazing the amount of time you can waste when you don't have standards trying just to remember which table uses what.

Answer 2

I like singular names but appear to be in the minority.

Answer 3

There are many arguments for each, but it all boils down to what you feel comfortable with. Neither is wrong.

What's really important is that you are consistent. Choose one standard and stick to it, which one you choose is of less importance.

Answer 4

At my current company we use Plural for table names. The reasoning is this: If we have a Customers table we consider each row a Customer, so the table itself is a collection of customers.

Answer 5

I like to use singular names like Agent that have PK names like AgentID.

But that's just me :o)

Answer 6

Singular, so you can have:

• Customer
• CustomerAddress
• CustomerAddressAuditTrail

etc.