idea Feature class name starting with a number in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Feature class name starting with a number

Bud — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 20:21:34 GMT

It would be helpful if we could name a FC starting with a number, such as a property address: 123_Main_St.

Currently, that doesn't seem to be allowed; a FC can only start with a letter.

Re: Feature class name starting with a number

VenkataKondepati — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 22:10:47 GMT

That’s a good point. In ArcGIS, feature class names follow underlying database rules, which require names to begin with a letter. This restriction ensures compatibility across geodatabases and different RDBMS back ends.

A common workaround is to prefix the name with a character (for example, _123_Main_St or fc_123_Main_St) and then apply an alias so users still see 123 Main St in maps and apps. The alias displays cleanly without the technical limitation.

It would definitely be useful if Esri could provide more flexibility or automated alias handling in this case. Thanks for raising it.

Regards,
Venkat

Re: Feature class name starting with a number - Status changed to: Closed

SSWoodward — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 01:11:39 GMT

Thanks for this idea, @Bud.

Most commercial databases do no allow tables to begin with a number. Table names that start with numbers can lead to multiple problems including portability issues. Since enterprise geodatabases are built on top of commercial RDBMS, we are not able to support features that would be disallowed in most databases.

This idea is not currently under consideration.

Re: Feature class name starting with a number

SimonSchütte_ct — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 09:56:22 GMT

The limitation does make sense.
I agree with @VenkataKondepati that some form of automated alias handling would be neat.

There is no feedback on why you can´t type in a number:

Ideally switch Alias and Name fields and add a "copy values over" button.
If the Alias starts with a number, inform the user that the Name cannot start with a number and suggest an alternative such as underscore number by default. Bonus point if the ArcGIS Pro Settings get an entry to specify the default prefix for Names that would usually start with a number %prefix%

Re: Feature class name starting with a number

Bud — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 13:59:32 GMT

Re: Feature class name starting with a number

SSWoodward — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 20:45:40 GMT

Interesting suggestion @SimonSchütte_ct. I would not encourage users to think of class names as an 'alias first' property. Aliases will always mirror the name of the class when no user defined alias is configured. In general, I would refrain from configuring a user defined alias on a feature class unless some type of requirement obligated their values to be different.