A is used to refer to a variable (column of the data matrix) for all commands dealing with data in SPSS.

The following rules apply when creating new variables or changing the name of an existing variable:

• Variable names must be unique in a .
• Variable names are up to 64 characters long and can only contain letters, digits and nonpunctuation characters (except that a period (.) is allowed.
• Spaces are not allowed in a name (traditionally - if intended - an underscore "_" character is used instead, e.g. trust_in_media, an alternative to this might be capitalisation: TrustInMedia)
• Upper and lowercase letters are not distinguished. AA, aa, Aa and aA refer to the same variable. SPSS keeps case as it is entered, e.g. "SocialStatus"
• The first character must be a letter. @, #, or $ are also used, but then for a special purpose (that is beyond this document). It is best to avoid them unless you know exactly what you are doing).
• Some names are reserved and cannot be used as names for variables as they are used as keywords in SPSS command syntax: these words are BY, THRU and WITH, the logical operators AND, OR, NOT, as well as the relational operators EQ,GE,GT, LE, LT, NE.

Please note that before version 12, variable names could not be longer than 8 characters and other restrictions applied for special characters.