A database organises/structures bits of data into tables, records and fields. The name of each table and field gives semantic meaning to the data they contain. So, for example, a datatable called 'individuals' may well have a field called 'firstName', and as a result we know that the string "john" found in that field on one record in that table is the first name of an individual. As a result, the string "john" has a meaning and as a result could be referred to as a piece of data.
That datatable could be represented on an excel or other spreadsheet with the records as rows and the fields given as column headers at the top of the sheet, so that we know that all the bits of info under the header "firstName" are first names.
Now, imagine that same sheet, but without the field names in the first row. We have a structured list of values, organised into rows and columns. We can see that in one column there are a series of values "john", "jim", "sue", etc. We might guess that they are first names but we don't KNOW that they are. My question is: what is the correct terminology for this kind of data which has no ostensible meaning.
In other fields of human endeavour one might be faced with an undifferentiated mass of meaningless or unimportant static or "noise", and with skill identify some meaningful intelligence or "signal". I am looking for the equivalent data management term for that undifferentiated mass containing both signal and noise.
Essentially, I am looking for a synonym for data, but a name that implies "non-information" in that the items are essentially collection of strings, numbers, whatever that have no obvious meaning (...yet!). Words such as values, info, content all seem to convey too great a sense of importance or meaning, whereas dross, rubbish, noise are also too pejorative. Any suggestions?