[csswg-drafts] [css-anchor-position]: consistent naming convention for anchor-related properties (#12789)

AleksandrHovhannisyan has just created a new issue for https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts:

== [css-anchor-position]: consistent naming convention for anchor-related properties ==
Hello! This is my first time contributing an issue to this repo. I'm not sure if this is the place to ask questions, especially for something one could consider to be a matter of opinion or personal preference.

I was reading up on the CSS anchoring API and was wondering why some properties use the `anchor-` prefix while others use `position-`. For example:

```css
.target {
  anchor-name: --my-anchor;
}
.anchored-element {
  position-anchor: --my-anchor;
  position-area: end end;
}
```

My understanding is that the anchoring API is just a natural extension of CSS positioning, allowing us to position elements _relative to each other_ as opposed to just statically, absolutely, or fixed to the viewport. I assume this is why those names were chosen.

But as an end user, I normally expect related properties to share a common naming convention. This improves the developer experience by reducing mental load and the need to remember two naming schemes. It also makes it easier to find the properties you're looking for in editors that have autocomplete.

For example, code like this reads more naturally and is easier to remember:

```css
.target {
  anchor-name: --my-anchor;
}
.anchored-element {
  anchor-target: --my-anchor;
  anchor-[position|point|whatever]: end end;
}
```

Since the anchoring API was already released over a year ago in Chrome, I assume a change like this wouldn't be realistic at this point in time (but again, I'm new to this process, so maybe it would?).

Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/12789 using your GitHub account


-- 
Sent via github-notify-ml as configured in https://github.com/w3c/github-notify-ml-config

Received on Friday, 12 September 2025 15:30:59 UTC