How you name data elements in databases and applications programs has often been a matter of personal taste. Decades ago, when I worked for state government, there is a COBOL programmer who would pick a theme for his programs. The paragraphs and variables would be named based on the current theme. One of his programs use the names of countries, so we had statements like “GO TO Afghanistan. ” Or when he was gardening, we had to figure out exactly what “PERFORM Chrysanthemum. ” was actually doing. This is what we old-timers referred to these naming conventions as “job secure
