Write once, read multiple eg, in SQL - if you're thinking "a" is a valid alias for Account table then think again. Account is not a long word. Make it meaningful. If you have AccountProductMemberElephant table then APME is not a valid alias. These of kind of aliases result in the future readers having to reference back to the table to find what that means. Either don't alias or if you have some meaningless prefix to the table (eg company name) alias to remove that Just remember you're only writing it once. It'll be read 100s of times! Or another favourite and one not everybody agrees with If it's not readable it's wrong!