The name of each function, data element, and driver preprocessor definition must be unique for each driver.
A driver module is linked into the kernel. The name of each symbol unique to a particular driver must not collide with other kernel symbols. To avoid such collisions, each function and data element for a particular driver must be named with a prefix common to that driver. The prefix must be sufficient to uniquely name each driver symbol. Typically, this prefix is the name of the driver or an abbreviation for the name of the driver. For example, xx_open() would be the name of the open(9E) routine of driver xx.
When building a driver, a driver must necessarily include a number of system header files. The globally-visible names within these header files cannot be predicted. To avoid collisions with these names, each driver preprocessor definition must be given a unique name by using an identifying prefix.
A distinguishing driver symbol prefix also is an aid to deciphering system logs and panics when troubleshooting. Instead of seeing an error related to an ambiguous attach() function, you see an error message about xx_attach().