Notes / Naming

Naming conventions that survive a rebrand

12 March 2026

Marketing will rename “Discover” to “For you” and then to something seasonal. If your event is called discover_tab_opened, the warehouse becomes a museum of campaigns. Event Taxonomy Planning for Apps starts with objects the product actually persists: basket, article, session, identity check.

In Event Family Studio we ask a blunt question: if the designer changed every string in the UI tomorrow, would this name still be true? If not, it is a screen label wearing an event costume.

Vendor-neutral verbs

Prefer opened, submitted, completed, failed. Avoid firebase_screen_view leftovers and Mixpanel “Super Property” slang in the name itself. Properties can carry vendor-specific context; the name should not.

What we do not do

We do not freeze brand names into the catalogue “for clarity”. Clarity for a week of onboarding becomes debt for five years of analysis. The RFC template used in the studio has a column for display copy so stakeholders can see the current label without polluting the key.

If you are mid-rebrand, inventory first. Renaming in production without a dual-write window is how finance loses a funnel. The Legacy Tracker Review exists for that mess; do not treat a blog post as a migration plan.