A complete set of guidelines for naming UML conceptual schema elements

We focus on the problem of naming conceptual schema elements in UML, which is faced by conceptual modelers every time they define a new element that requires a name. The problem is significant because in general there are many elements that require a name, and the names given have a strong influence on the understandability of that schema. We propose a guideline for every kind of element to which a conceptual modeler may give a name in UML. The guideline comprises the grammar form of the name and a pattern sentence. A name complies with our guideline if it has that form and the sentence generated from the pattern sentence is grammatically well-formed and semantically meaningful. The main novelty of our proposal is that it is (as far as we know) the first that provides a naming guideline for each kind of element of conceptual schemas in UML.