An LDAP directory has entries that contain information pertaining to entities. Each attribute has a name and one or more values. The names of the attributes are mnemonic strings, such as cn for common name, or mail for email address. For example, a company may have an employee directory.

The cn (or Common-Name) is a single-value attribute that is the object's relative distinguished name. The cn is the name of the group in Active Directory Domain Services. As with all other objects, the cn of a group must be unique among the sibling objects in the container that contains the group.

An entry is made up of a collection of attributes that have a unique identifier called a Distinguished Name (DN). A DN has a unique name that identifies the entry at the respective hierarchy. In the example above, John Doe and Jane Doe are different common names (cn) that identify different entries at that same level.