Custom fields are often duplicated across Jira projects. While the custom fields may store the same type of information, administrators often need to create duplicate custom fields with new names that are more contextually relevant for a given project. As an example, one project may have a custom field called "Supervisor", while another project uses a custom field called "Manager". Both custom fields store the same type of information.

Adding the ability for administrators/project admins to use aliases for custom fields on a per-project basis would allow for the reduction of the overall number custom fields in Jira. Large numbers of custom fields are known to negatively impact performance and this would help to mitigate the need to create additional fields.

Aliases would need to be usable in JQL searches, as users of a given project are likely to only know a custom field by it's per-project alias.