Data Engineering › Collection & Instrumentation

Event Naming Conventions

Consistent names like order_completed so events are findable and comparable.

Also known as: event naming, analytics event names, tracking event names, naming events

Analytics events (order_completed, video_played) are only useful if people can find them, understand them and compare them. Without conventions you end up with Click, button_click, clicked_button and ClickedBuyNow2 all meaning the same thing, and a dashboard nobody trusts.

A common convention: object + past-tense action

order_completed
cart_item_added
video_played
account_created
subscription_cancelled

• Format: snake_case, lowercase, no spaces or special characters. Pick one style and keep it.
• Past tense, because the event records something that already happened (added, not add).
• Object first, then action, so related events sort together and are easy to search (cart_item_added, cart_item_removed).
• Specific, not generic. checkout_started tells a story; click tells nothing.

Put details in properties, not in the name

// bad: a new event name per button
clicked_blue_signup_button_on_homepage

// good: one event, with properties
signup_button_clicked   { location: "homepage", variant: "blue" }

Names stay few and stable, and properties carry the detail. Use consistent property names as well (user_id, not userId in one place and uid in another), consistent types (an amount is always a number, in the same units) and consistent values ("USD", not sometimes "usd").

Habits

• Document every event in a tracking plan: name, when it fires, properties and types, owner.
• Don’t rename events casually. Old and new names split your history. If you must, handle the mapping in the pipeline and note the change date.
• Review new events the way you review API changes.
• Don’t encode data in the name (user IDs, dates, A/B variants).
• Keep personal data out of names and properties unless you have a clear need and consent (consent at collection).
• Distinguish where the event came from (client or server) when it matters (client vs server tracking).

Naming is the same discipline as naming in code (naming things). The difference is that event names are a contract many other people’s queries depend on, so changes are costly.