What normal forms do you know in databases? To which form do you try to bring the database during design?

Normal forms (NF) of databases:

• 1NF (First Normal Form) — all fields are atomic, no repeating groups.
• 2NF (Second Normal Form) — 1NF + all non-key attributes fully depend on the entire composite key.
• 3NF (Third Normal Form) — 2NF + no transitive dependencies between non-key attributes.
• BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form) — an enhancement of 3NF, all determinants are keys.

When designing, I try to bring the database to 3NF to minimize redundancy and update anomalies while maintaining query convenience. In some cases, for performance optimization, denormalization is allowed.