title
Rules for naming Azure Data Factory entities
description
Describes naming rules for Data Factory entities.
author
ssabat
ms.author
susabat
ms.reviewer
whhender
ms.subservice
orchestration
ms.topic
concept-article
ms.date
03/31/2025
Azure Data Factory - naming rules [!INCLUDEappliesto-adf-xxx-md ]
The following table provides naming rules for Data Factory artifacts.
Name
Name Uniqueness
Validation Checks
Data factory
Unique across Microsoft Azure. Names are case-insensitive, that is, MyDF and mydf refer to the same data factory.
Each data factory is tied to exactly one Azure subscription. Object names must start with a letter or a number, and can contain only letters, numbers, and the dash (-) character. Every dash (-) character must be immediately preceded and followed by a letter or a number. Consecutive dashes aren't permitted in container names. Name can be 3-63 characters long.
Linked services/Datasets/Pipelines/Data Flows
Unique within a data factory. Names are case-insensitive.
Object names must start with a letter. The following characters aren't allowed: “.”, “+”, “?”, “/”, “<”, ”>”,”*”,”%”,”&”,”:”,”\” Dashes ("-") aren't allowed in the names of linked services, data flows, and datasets.
Integration Runtime
Unique within a data factory. Names are case-insensitive.
Integration runtime Name can contain only letters, numbers, and the dash (-) character. The first and last characters must be a letter or number. Every dash (-) character must be immediately preceded and followed by a letter or a number. Consecutive dashes aren't permitted in integration runtime name.
Data flow transformations
Unique within a data flow. Names are case-insensitive
Data flow transformation names can only contain letters and numbers The first character must be a letter.
Resource Group
Unique across Microsoft Azure. Names are case-insensitive.
For more info, see Azure naming rules and restrictions .
Pipeline parameters & variable
Unique within the pipeline. Names are case-insensitive.
Validation check on parameter names and variable names is limited to uniqueness because of backward compatibility reason. When use parameters or variables to reference entity names, for example linked service, the entity naming rules apply. A good practice is to follow data flow transformation naming rules to name your pipeline parameters and variables.
Learn how to create data factories by following step-by-step instructions in Quickstart: create a data factory article.