Coding and naming policy for statistical geographies in Scotland

This section describes how GSS geography instances should be named.

Policy

It is difficult to devise and implement a consistent policy for assigning names to geography instances. Names can be associated history and emotional attachment, and legislative requirements at the UK level around Welsh & Gaelic languages may also need to be considered. Therefore, naming is afforded more flexibility than the strict policy around coding.

With regards to naming in Scotland, there are number of principles that should be adhered to:

• Names for area instances within a given entity should be, as far as possible, unique across the United Kingdom.
• Sensitivities to Gaelic should be respected, giving preference to a Gaelic name for a geographic area if one exists. For example, Na h-Eileanan Siar is the preferred English variant for the Western Isles.
• Where a geography is defined by a formal (i.e. legal) process, instances will normally be named following what is recorded in legislation or legal documents as the official names. Exceptions may be noted when Gaelic is the preferred language
• The use of the same name at different levels of a hierarchy should be avoided. For example, Fife should not be both a ward and a council area.
• The type of area (e.g. council, ward) should only be part of a name in order to provide uniqueness (where, for instance, the same name cannot be avoided). For consistency, this type-name should come at the end and be applied to the higher-level geography.
• Names can change without any other change to the attributes of the instance. In this case a name change alone does not require a code change.
• Use of abbreviations should be minimised and standardised. 'St', without the inclusion of a full stop, is only allowable as an abbreviation for 'Saint' where it is part of the formal name; 'S' must not be used for 'South'.
• Where a name is shortened, there should be a single version established by the entity owner. Such data must be recorded in a Code History Database (CHD) or local gazetteer by the owner.
• The use of non-alphanumeric characters such as slashes and hyphens should be minimised. The use of ampersands (‘&’) in place of ‘and’ should be avoided.
• Possessive apostrophes should be used.

Geographies with many instances (e.g. Output Areas) may not apply names due to the resources required to define, agree and maintain them. In these cases the code is often used in place of the name.

Presentation

The general principle for the presentation of entities or groupings of entities (for example, wards within local authorities) is that the order of presentation at each level of the grouping hierarchy is alphabetic. The names used should be consistent with what is recorded in the code register. This raises some anomalies with respect to Scottish local authorities, for example the City of Edinburgh and Na h-Eileanan Siar, where alternative names are frequently used.

The official name given to the area under the jurisdiction of the City of Edinburgh Council is ‘City of Edinburgh’. While in the past it has been commonplace to style this as ‘Edinburgh, City of’, current guidance states that this shall be styled with its official name to avoid issues caused by punctuation characters and the potential for mis-matched columns. Thus, City of Edinburgh will be styled alphabetically under ‘C’.

​​​​​​​Similarly, Na h-Eileanan Siar shall be styled alphabetically under ‘N’ to avoid complications with grammar (it would not be appropriate to style this as ‘Eileanan Siar, Na h-‘ as this loses meaning in the Gaelic language).