Jeff Moden (9/17/2009)
Are you saying that if someone else had a checking account with the name Jeff Moden on it, that I shouldn't be allowed to use my name on a new checking account? Of course not... the surrogate key is the check account number and no effort to prevent duplicate names is required. Surrogate keys are the only thing that make that possible. Sure, you can do like this site did, but what a pain in the hiney if they did that on checking accounts.
I've finally found an article that explains what I was trying to get at.
http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/database-administration/ten-common-database-design-mistakes/
Have a look at number 6. He obviously explains it far better than I have.