Almost everthing (ie customers, patients, products, reports, etc) has a name. The names do not have to be unique - this is obvious for things like patients (where there are likely to be many Rovers, Busters and Scruffys) but less obvious with things like reports.

Everything has an ID and this is unique. Hence the system can quite happily handle two products named 'Best Dog Biscuits', or two reports named 'Stock Listing', but users will get confused.

Hence it is best to use unique names where appropriate.