Naming is a central element of a distributed or network system design. Appropriate design choices are central. This paper explores a taxonomy of naming systems, and engineering tradeoffs as an aid to the namespace designer. The three orthogonal components of the taxonomy are the characteristics of the namespace itself, name assignment, and name resolution. Within each of these, we explore a number of distinct characteristics. The position of this paper is that engineering design of naming systems should be informed by the possibilities and tradeoffs that those possibilities represent. The paper includes a review of a sampling of naming system designs that reflect different choices within the taxonomy and discussion about why those choices were made.This effort was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Materiel Command, USAF, under agreement number F30602-00-2-0553
