[Rails] one master table to hold symbols: good or bad idea?

(This is may be more of a db design question than a rails question.)

Summary:

I'm thinking of creating a single AR class to hold constant symbol
values and use it for :has_many_through relations whenever I need a
constant symbol. Is this a good idea or a bad idea?

Details:

I notice that I have a lot of models that contain just a name string:

create_table "natural_resources", :force => true do |t|
t.string "name"
end

create_table "roles", :force => true do |t|
t.string "name"
end

... etc ...

These moels are always joined through a has_many_through relation to
some other object (e.g. User :has_many :roles, :through => :user_roles),
and the names are treated effectively as constant symbols.

So I'm thinking of consolidating these models into a single one:

create_table :symbols, :force => true do |t|
t.string :name
end
add_index :symbols, :name, :unique=>true

class Util::Symbol < ActiveRecord::Base
validates :name, :presence => true
def self.intern(name)
(r = where(:name => name.to_s)).create!
rescue ActiveRecord::RecordNotUnique
r.first
end
end

... and using this wherever I'd previously used separate classes. This
feels DRYer.

Can anyone give a strong argument for or against this approach?

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