Toad does not allow (and returns an ORA-00904 error) the adding of a column that begins with numeric characters to an existing table (SB | Table | RHS Columns | Add column).
If you rename an existing column on the same page, the operation completes successfully, and the newly created attribute is placed between the “ characters.
I used the latest 2026R1 GA.
The way most "Create DB Object" windows in Toad work is like this: Enter your own quotes if you want. We send the object name to Oracle just as you type it. The thinking here is that you can be lazy and type something in lowercase and Oracle converts it to uppercase, but if you want something fancy like My Awesome Column! then you can add your own double quotes to get that.
Rename Column seems to behave a little differently. it processes your object name before sending to Oracle. This is what it does:
The Rename Column behavior seems more user friendly in your scenario, but I think it's not really perfect either, because if you had entered a 1New Column, for example, it would come out as 1NEW COLUMN which may not have been what you wanted.
I'm not sure which way is better...probably rename column (maybe we could enhance it look for spaces and other characters) but they should at least be consistent.
It's too late to make any change here for version 2026 R2, which is due out pretty soon.
Until then you can always add your own double-quotes for special object names.
Update: I just looked at our code a little more. We actually have some code which should be giving you a message like Double quotes are required for "Blah", but I see we aren't showing it. That's a bug. I will fix and make both places consistent for Toad 2026 R3. I think it would also be nice to have a "Show SQL" button on the rename dialog. I'll add that too.
DBAs tend to disallow names that require quoting. In the past, various tools--including, especially, Oracle tools--would misbehave in unpredictable ways. I think this has gotten better with recent versions.
Cheers,
Russ