It really depends on the language. 'const' in C works differently from 'const' in other languages (even C++, which has some great 'const' use cases that make guarantees about whether values will change, not just about the symbol binding), they both work differently than 'final'. Similar confusions with 'static'. If all you want to say is "cannot reassign this symbol", then 'val' is great and sidesteps this whole history of readability and meaning confusion.