Internal name
An internal name for a stage, game object, or category of game objects is the name that said object is referred to as within the game's code and internal files. In many cases, this is different from any external names for the object that the player might see.
Properties
The table below summarizes some of the key differences between external names (the names normally seen by the player) and internal names:
| External Names | Internal Names |
|---|---|
| Only stored in one location in the files; the game retrieves the name from that same location every time the external name needs to be displayed | Written in the files and code every time the object is referenced |
| Easy to change during development, since it's only saved in one place | Difficult to change during development, since it would require replacing every instance of the name across the game's files |
| Often changed during development for the above reason (e.g. "Kogwald" was renamed to Steam Gardens[1]) | Rarely changed during development for the above reason |
| Something the player can easily recognize, such as "Mario" | Often cryptic or esoteric, such as "PlayerActorHakoniwa" |
| Different for each language the game can be played in | Always the same, since the game's internal files don't change based on language |
| Not all objects or locations have them, hence why many things are named colloquially by the community | All meaningful objects in the game must have one in order for the code to reference them |
The fact that internal names are difficult to change during development is generally the reason why they don't seem to correspond with the external names in any languages, as the external names often go through multiple iterations.