Item Names renamed when open data in SPSS

[ChasteenLab]

When I have item names that are greater than 8 characters, I run into an issue when I open the data in SPSS: it renames the variable name to VAR0001, VAR0002, etc when I look at the data in Data View. The item names are still there in Variable View, but are listed in the Label column. I have no problem copying the names from the Label column into the Variable column (i.e. it isn't an issue with SPSS having a defined variable length of 8 characters or less). Is there any way to stop longer item names from being renamed as VAR... when you view data in SPSS?

[jarvis24]

Currently not. It's to ensure that the SPSS files remain compatible with older versions that do not support variable names that are beyond 8 characters. I suppose it ought to be an option so the user can decide.

A related support email, same issue:

When we were trying to read data in SPSS, the variable names in medialab were not saved into SPSS. In this case, we have no idea which data goes to which variable.
Do you have any suggestions regarding how to transform variables name in medialab into SPSS?

later that day..

Thanks for your replying. Yes, all of those variables name have more than 8 characters long. Therefore, they cannot be stored in SPSS. After changing the length of names, it turns out good.

Just pointing out that they are stored -- they are just renamed and the long variable names are transformed into variable labels.