HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee
This committee is responsible for the approval of a unique symbol for each gene.
It also designs a longer and more descriptive name.
The committee makes considerable efforts to use symbols acceptable to workers in the field, but sometimes it is not possible to use exactly what has previously appeared in the literature.
However, wherever the committee is aware of such symbols, they are listed as aliases in the Genew database. (http://www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/cgibin/nomenclature/searchgenes.pl)