diff --git a/src/java/com/threerings/util/Name.java b/src/java/com/threerings/util/Name.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2a6624560
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/java/com/threerings/util/Name.java
@@ -0,0 +1,132 @@
+//
+// $Id: Name.java,v 1.1 2004/03/06 14:55:03 mdb Exp $
+
+package com.threerings.util;
+
+import java.util.regex.Pattern;
+
+import com.threerings.io.SimpleStreamableObject;
+
+/**
+ * Contains the name of an entity. Provides a means by which names can be
+ * efficiently loosely compared rather than relying on humans to type
+ * things exactly or the challenge of inserting code to normalize names
+ * everywhere they are compared.
+ */
+public class Name extends SimpleStreamableObject
+    implements Comparable
+{
+    /** A blank name for use in situations where it is needed.
+     * <em>Note:</em> because names are used in distributed applications
+     * you cannot assume that a reference check against blank is
+     * sufficient. You must use <code>BLANK.equals(targetName)</code>. */
+    public static final Name BLANK = new Name("");
+
+    /** Creates a blank instance for unserialization. */
+    public Name ()
+    {
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Creates a name instance with the supplied name.
+     */
+    public Name (String name)
+    {
+        _name = (name == null) ? "" : name;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns the normalized version of this name.
+     */
+    public String getNormal ()
+    {
+        if (_normal == null) {
+            _normal = normalize(_name);
+        }
+        return _normal;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns true if this name is valid. Derived classes can provide
+     * more interesting requirements for name validity than the default
+     * which is that it is non-blank.
+     */
+    public boolean isValid ()
+    {
+        return !blank();
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns true if this name is blank, false if it contains data.
+     */
+    public boolean blank ()
+    {
+        return blank(this);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns the unprocessed name as a string.
+     */
+    public String toString ()
+    {
+        return _name;
+    }
+
+    // documentation inherited
+    public int hashCode ()
+    {
+        return getNormal().hashCode();
+    }
+
+    // documentation inherited
+    public boolean equals (Object other)
+    {
+        // we have to be of the same derived class but we don't want to
+        // wig out if the classes were loaded from different class loaders
+        if (other == null ||
+            !other.getClass().getName().equals(getClass().getName())) {
+            return false;
+        } else {
+            return getNormal().equals(((Name)other).getNormal());
+        }
+    }
+
+    // documentation inherited
+    public int compareTo (Object o)
+    {
+        if (o instanceof Name) {
+            return getNormal().compareTo(((Name)o).getNormal());
+        } else {
+            return getClass().getName().compareTo(o.getClass().getName());
+        }
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns true if this name is null or blank, false if it contains
+     * useful data. This works on derived classes as well.
+     */
+    public static boolean blank (Name name)
+    {
+        return (name == null || name.toString().equals(BLANK.toString()));
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns a normalized version of the supplied name. The default
+     * implementation is case and space insensitive.
+     */
+    protected String normalize (String name)
+    {
+        name = name.toLowerCase();
+        name = _compactor.matcher(name).replaceAll("");
+        return name;
+    }
+
+    /** The raw name text. */
+    protected String _name;
+
+    /** The normalized name text. */
+    protected transient String _normal;
+
+    /** Used to strip spaces from names. */
+    protected static Pattern _compactor = Pattern.compile("\\s");
+}