Brenda,
This is only my $.02 US, and may end up provoking an argument. We've found that using a 2 character prefix for each table really helps down the line. Yes it cuts the "usable" characters to 8 but the advantage is that each table has individual fields. The ID (Primary key) field is always the 2 chars plus "ID", eg PRID. Foreign Keys in a child table are always the child table prefix plus an underscore plus the primary table's ID, eg ST_PRID. We try to use identical names (except for the prefix) for identical fields if any. In SELECT-SQL this becomes very useful because there is never a confusion about the source of any field. A side benefit is that the prefix makes it possible to use "reserved" words - STDesc or PRCount no longer affect VFP but are easy to read.
Barbara