The name entry is a symbol created by you to identify an instruction statement. A name entry is generally optional. Except for two instances, the name entry, when provided, must be a valid symbol at assembly time (after substituting variable symbols, if specified). For a discussion of the exceptions to this rule, see TITLE instruction and Macro instruction format.

The symbol must consist of 63 or fewer alphanumeric characters, the first of which must be alphabetic. It must be entered with the first character appearing in the begin column. If the begin column is a space, the assembler program assumes that no name has been entered. No spaces or double-byte data can appear in the symbol.