A File Naming Convention (FNC) is a framework for naming your files in a way that describes what they contain and how they relate to other files. Developing an FNC is done through identifying the key elements of the project, the important differences and commonalities between your files.
To ensure that files are sorted in proper chronological order the most significant date and time components should appear first followed with the least significant components. If all the other words in the filename are the same, this convention will allow us to sort by year, then month, then date.
Files should be named consistently
File names should be short but descriptive (<25 characters) (Briney)
Avoid special characters or spaces in a file name
Use capitals and underscores instead of periods or spaces or slashes
Use date format ISO 8601: YYYYMMDD
Include a version number (Creamer et al.)
Write down naming convention in data management plan