Belongs to Many Pivot table naming

To determine the table name of the relationship's intermediate table, Eloquent will join the two related model names in alphabetical order.

This would mean a join between Post and Tag could be added like this:

class Post extends Model
{
    public $table = 'posts';
 
    public function tags()
    {
        return $this->belongsToMany(Tag::class);
    }
}

However, you are free to override this convention, and you would need to specify the join table in the second argument.

class Post extends Model
{
    public $table = 'posts';
 
    public function tags()
    {
        return $this->belongsToMany(Tag::class, 'posts_tags');
    }
}

If you wish to be explicit about the primary keys you can also supply these as third and fourth arguments.

class Post extends Model
{
    public $table = 'posts';
 
    public function tags()
    {
        return $this->belongsToMany(Tag::class, 'post_tag', 'post_id', 'tag_id');
    }
}