Each record within your database must be allocated a meaningful name that will help planning and operational staff identify the portion of the reserves that the record is modelling. The record name is not intended to uniquely identify each record, but rather to distinguish between the elements which a particular upper level record is subdivided into. The record name is one component of the path name and it is this which uniquely identifies the record.

Consider an open cut coal mine with two pits, each of which has been subdivided into eight strips. The names of the pits may be South Pit and North Pit which clearly identify the reserves to which they correspond. In each pit, the strips could be named S1 to S8 (or just 1 to 8), again identifying which portion of their pit they are modelling. At most mines, particularly when they are already operating, a set of naming conventions will already be entrenched, and normally these can be adopted for your XPAC database.

In the example, the same names could be used for corresponding strips in both pits. This duplication is quite acceptable, providing the records under a single upper level record have unique names.