The MHCLG Way and its content is intended for internal use by the MHCLG community.

How to name software products

Read this guide when you need to name components for your software product, for example applications, software libraries, plugins or frameworks. Your users should understand what something does from its name.

Your product name should be self-descriptive

Avoid using puns, acronyms or branding for names as this makes it difficult for others to understand what it does.

Make sure you use the same name consistently whenever you’re referring to the same product. For example the name of the Delta application’s GitHub repository is communitiesuk/delta.

These MHCLG product names clearly communicate their purpose:

• Find an energy certificate
• Register to vote
• Submit social housing lettings and sales data

These MHCLG product names are ambiguous and possibly confusing:

• Delta
• E-CLAIMS
• Atlas

Further reading

The Service Manual has guidance on naming services, and this will be relevant when naming applications or packages.

This page was last reviewed on 30 August 2024. It needs to be reviewed again on 30 August 2025 by the page owner #mhclg-way .