Why “Fred” is a terrible name for a component

The importance of meaningfully named components

Personally, I think ‘Fred’ is a great name. Maybe your name is ‘Fred’. You could be called ‘Fred’, ‘Freddy,’ or even ‘Fredrick’, depending on the familiarity and formality you prefer. It’s very versatile that way.

But if you’re a component in a Design System and your name is “Fred,” I think there is room for improvement.

Dan Mall, one of the biggest influencers, speakers, and advocates of Design Systems, recalls helping Radio Free Europe with its Design System years ago.

When Radio Free Europe was creating a new component, they didn’t know what to call it. Should it be a ‘Carousel,’ ‘Banner,’ or a ‘Slider’? Somehow, they couldn’t reach a consensus, so they bypassed the issue altogether and agreed to call it ‘Fred’.

Right or wrong, ‘Fred’ is used in production at Radio Free Europe as an HTML class today. Dan suggests the longevity of ‘Fred’ is evidence the choice of name was a success.

With that lesson, Dan Mall says, “It doesn’t matter what you agree on. It only matters that you agree.”, and from a certain perspective, this is true.

However, a Swedish Enterprise Architect, Thomas Larsson recalls what his computer science professor once said. “You can call a chair a horse but don’t get disappointed if anyone you don’t know doesn’t understand you.”.

From that perspective, the name is as important as what it does, especially if you want to communicate effectively.

Naming Things is Hard

Naming things is the most challenging aspect of Design Systems, but we need to ask ourselves a difficult question. What makes a good name ‘good’ and a bad name ‘bad’? Is ‘Fred’ a good name or a bad name for a carousel component?

Many articles have been written on ‘how to name components’, but rarely mention when a name is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Kat Allens' article Naming design system components suggests names that are Intuitive, Consistent, and Scalable as guidelines.

To give credit where credit is due, the component named ‘Fred’ is undoubtedly a triumph in consensus building! However, ‘Fred’ as a…