• One convention used by a previous employer that I found helpful and still use (with some flexibility) is to have a 3-letter prefix on all columns that is an abbreviation of the table name.

    For example in the Employee table you have EmpFirstName, EmpLastName, etc.

    For EmployeeAddress you use EmaStreet etc.

    The primary key is always of the form EmpId and foreign keys would all be like EmaEmpId

    This way there is no ambiguity on what tables they refer to and where the columns come from and no need to qualify the name if you have the same field in different tables.

    3 letter prefixes get a bit limiting sometimes.