GSAK calculates a unique smart name for every waypoint and stores this name in the database. This unique name is calculated using an algorithm applied to the waypoint description. If you would like to see this smart name, just add this column to your current view (Tools=>Options=>Display). The length of the smart name is set via "Tools=>Options=>General" (global setting) but this can be overridden for each database via Database=>Properties. The database restricts the length of smart names to 20 characters.
Smart names are often preferred to the geocaching.com GCXXXX code because they are more meaningful - especially when sending to your GPSr. It is recommended that you set your smart name length to the same as your maximum GPS waypoint length (Tools=>Options=General)
However, you are not limited to setting the smart name length via the options menu. There are occasions when you might want to change the length of your smart names (For example, you have two GPSr units with different maximum character lengths). For such occasion you can change the length of the smart name on the fly using the %smart=nn special tag. You can also use the Database=>Properties to set different length smart names by database.
Smart names calculate a meaningful unique name. It does this by dropping off superfluous beginning words like "the", "this", "a", and so on, and removing spaces and special characters. Any numbers in the waypoint description are preserved if possible. It then substitutes a number for the final character, if the resulting string would cause a duplicate. It also does "smart" capitalization of the resulting waypoint name to make it more readable. For example the cache name "The east! lake" would have a "smart name" of EastLa (if using six characters for your smart names). If an existing waypoint already had this name, then the new waypoint would be changed to EastL1.
If you don't like the smart name that is calculated for a waypoint you can manually override this name (right mouse click, select edit). GSAK will then always use that name rather than the calculated smart name. Smart names that have been overridden this way will show in bold typeface in the smart name column.
Note1: Changing the length of the smart name by any means, will cause GSAK to do a re-calculation of the whole database. This can slow things down quite a bit on large databases. If you do not need unique smart names then please use the %ShortName tag. This tag is far more efficient (no database recalculation required regardless of the length) and provides the same result as the smart name with the sole exception that unique names are not guaranteed. Alternatively, go to "Database=>Properties" and check the box "disable smart names" if you don't want or need smart names in a particular database.
Note2: You can disable smart names altogether for any database via "Database=>Properties". If you take the option "Database=>Recalculate smart names" when smart names are disabled, then all smart names will be cleared (set to blank).