Mapping a class several times
Imagine that you have several tables with some columns in common. For example, you could have ITEM_AUCTION and ITEM_SALE tables. Usually you map each table to an entity persistent class, ItemAuction and ItemSale respectively. With the help of entity names, you can save work and implement a single persistent class.
To map both tables to a single persistent class, use different entity names (and usually different property mappings):
...
entity-name="ItemSale...