XSD datatype

xs:Name

An XML name, which may contain a colon. Rarely the type you want — NCName usually is.

xs:Name permits the colon that xs:NCName forbids, because it models the raw XML name production rather than a namespace-aware one. In practice a name containing a colon is a QName, and should be typed as one.

It is worth knowing mainly to explain why some schemas accept 'a:b' where you expected a rejection.

Lexical space: Letter, underscore or colon, then name characters including colons.
Derives from: xs:token
Category: String types
Facets: length, minLength, maxLength, pattern, enumeration, whiteSpace

What validates

Every literal below is put through the schema validator on each test run, against the schema at the foot of this page.

order
soap:Envelope
_private
a:b:c

What does not

1st
Cannot start with a digit.
has space
Whitespace is not a name character.

What catches people out

'a:b:c' is a valid xs:Name and not a valid QName. Name checks characters, not structure.
Prefer xs:NCName or xs:QName; xs:Name accepts things neither of them would.

The schema used

This is the exact schema the literals above are validated against. Paste it into the validator with one of them to see the result yourself.

schema.xsd

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <xs:element name="v" type="xs:Name"/>
</xs:schema>

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