Naming app entities after DB tables

Our app is marred by some really, really horrible naming decisions. It's largely because the team is Russian-speaking and not everyone knows English. For example, we have a table called POLICE that actually stores policies (as in "insurance policies"). Or we have a table called ACTION that refers to special offers or discounts (I guess because the Russian word "акция" looks like the English word "action"). I may propagate those naming decisions by naming application types the same way. It doesn't apply to data classes only. For example, we have a class called ActionDlg (like, a GUI modal dialog). Should I, as a developer, prioritize: Clear mappings between DB entities and my application types by naming them accordingly. Or my sanity and name application types reasonably — even though it may cause confusion as corresponding DB tables would not be obvious (I can add javadocs but still).

Apr 29, 2025 - 14:04

Our app is marred by some really, really horrible naming decisions. It's largely because the team is Russian-speaking and not everyone knows English.

For example, we have a table called POLICE that actually stores policies (as in "insurance policies"). Or we have a table called ACTION that refers to special offers or discounts (I guess because the Russian word "акция" looks like the English word "action").

I may propagate those naming decisions by naming application types the same way. It doesn't apply to data classes only. For example, we have a class called ActionDlg (like, a GUI modal dialog).

Should I, as a developer, prioritize:

Clear mappings between DB entities and my application types by naming them accordingly.
Or my sanity and name application types reasonably — even though it may cause confusion as corresponding DB tables would not be obvious (I can add javadocs but still).