What should I name a table that maps two tables together? [closed]

Let's say I have two tables:

Table: Color
Columns: Id, ColorName, ColorCode

Table: Shape
Columns: Id, ShapeName, VertexList

What should I call the table that maps color to shape?

Table: ???
Columns: ColorId, ShapeId

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things
-- Phil Karlton

Coming up with a good name for a table that represents a many-to-many relationship makes the relationship easier to read and understand. Sometimes finding a great name is not trivial but usually it is worth to spend some time thinking about.

An example: Reader and Newspaper.

A Newspaper has many Readers and a Reader has many Newspapers

You could call the relationship NewspaperReader but a name like Subscription might convey better what the table is about.

The name Subscription also is more idiomatic in case you want to map the table to objects later on.

The convention for naming many-to-many tables is a concatenation of the names of both tables that are involved in the relation. ColourShape would be a sensible default in your case. That said, I think Nick D came up with two great suggestions: Style and Texture.

How about ColorShapeMap or Style or Texture.

Name the table whatever you like, as long as it is informative:

COLOR_SHAPE_XREF

From a model perspective, the table is called a join/corrollary/cross reference table. I've kept the habit of using _XREF at the end to make the relationship obvious.

Interesting about half of the answers give a general term for any table that implements a many-to-many relationship, and the other half of the answers suggest a name for this specific table.

I called these tables intersections tables generally.

In terms of naming conventions, most people give a name that is an amalgam of the two tables in the many-to-many relationship. So in this case, "ColorShape" or "ShapeColor." But I find this looks artificial and awkward.

Joe Celko recommends in his book "SQL Programming Style" to name these tables in some natural language manner. For instance, if a Shape is colored by a Color, then name the table ColoredBy. Then you could have a diagram that more or less reads naturally like this:

Shape <-- ColoredBy --> Color

Conversely, you could say a Color colors a Shape:

Color <-- Colors --> Shape

But this looks like the middle table is the same thing as Color with a plural naming convention. Too confusing.

Probably most clear to use the ColoredBy naming convention. Interesting that using the passive voice makes the naming convention more clear.