One day you’ll give one of your text boxes, (or any object in your database) a name it might be “Name”. If you look at the list of reserved words that’s a NO-NO don’t name anything by any of the reserved words. It’s a bit like an injection attack on an SQL Server, if you know what you’re doing you can pass through certain words and break an SQL Server. And that’s the risk you take with your MS Access database by using reserved words, there’s a chance that at some Future date your database won’t work properly or will just crash and you won’t know why…

So how does a naming convention solve this? Well quite simply reserve words are just that, they are “words”. If you prefix them, take the case of a textbox named like this “txtName” now, that’s no longer a reserved word, it’s no longer a word! Straight away you have solved or at least, minimised the chance of running into a clash with a reserved word. That’s one VERY Good reason, but it’s very unlikely to happen in my opinion…. (Would like some examples if it’s happened to you!)

The other reason for using a naming convention is it’s just handy, especially when you’re using intellisense to find a word. If you are looking for a text box you haven’t got to try and remember find a text box in 300 controls you might only have 10 or 20 text boxes on your form and there for you to test the chances of finding the correct control quickly is much increased.