VFP 6.0

Sometimes VFP lets me have long field names (over 10 characters)in a table and other time it doesn't (limits me to just 10).

example:

one table I have has a field called ''accountingperiod''
(16 characters wide)

another table will only let me call it ''accounting''
(16 characters wide)

Is there a way to make all of my tables let me have fields longer than 10 characters wide?