Hi Gail, I have followed up on your suggestion and it is indeed possible to reproduce this with a very simple test case using the schema validator. I used the schema as defined by the entity model in my previously uploaded test case. I removed the hbm2dll.auto settings from the config file and ran the SchemaValidator.main method passing in "--config=hibernate.cfg.xml" as the sole argument:

May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.Version logVersion
INFO: HHH000412: Hibernate Core

May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.cfg.Environment <clinit>
INFO: HHH000206: hibernate.properties not found
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.cfg.Environment buildBytecodeProvider
INFO: HHH000021: Bytecode provider name : javassist
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.boot.jaxb.internal.stax.LocalXmlResourceResolver resolveEntity
WARN: HHH90000012: Recognized obsolete hibernate namespace http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration. Use namespace http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-configuration instead. Support for obsolete DTD/XSD namespaces may be removed at any time.
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.annotations.common.reflection.java.JavaReflectionManager <clinit>
INFO: HCANN000001: Hibernate Commons Annotations

May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.DriverManagerConnectionProviderImpl configure
WARN: HHH10001002: Using Hibernate built-in connection pool (not for production use!)
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.DriverManagerConnectionProviderImpl buildCreator
INFO: HHH10001005: using driver [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] at URL [jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/HBMTEST]
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.DriverManagerConnectionProviderImpl buildCreator
INFO: HHH10001001: Connection properties:

May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.DriverManagerConnectionProviderImpl buildCreator
INFO: HHH10001003: Autocommit mode: false
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.PooledConnections <init>
INFO: HHH000115: Hibernate connection pool size: 1 (min=1)
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.dialect.Dialect <init>
INFO: HHH000400: Using dialect: org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL57InnoDBDialect
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidator validate
INFO: HHH000229: Running schema validator
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.internal.InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl processGetTableResults
INFO: HHH000263: More than one table found: AN_ENTITY
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.DriverManagerConnectionProviderImpl stop
INFO: HHH10001008: Cleaning up connection pool [jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/HBMTEST]
May 03, 2016 8:35:41 AM org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidator main
ERROR: HHH000366: Error running schema update
org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.spi.SchemaExtractionException: More than one table found in namespace (HBMTEST, ) : AN_ENTITY
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.internal.InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.processGetTableResults(InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.java:381)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.internal.InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.locateTableInNamespace(InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.java:346)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.internal.InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.getTable(InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.java:241)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.internal.exec.ImprovedDatabaseInformationImpl.getTableInformation(ImprovedDatabaseInformationImpl.java:109)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.internal.SchemaValidatorImpl.performValidation(SchemaValidatorImpl.java:97)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.internal.SchemaValidatorImpl.doValidation(SchemaValidatorImpl.java:67)
at org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidator.validate(SchemaValidator.java:65)
at org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidator.main(SchemaValidator.java:75)
at org.ginger.hiberevolvetest.SchemaValidatorTest.main(SchemaValidatorTest.java:15)
org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.spi.SchemaExtractionException: More than one table found in namespace (HBMTEST, ) : AN_ENTITY
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.internal.InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.processGetTableResults(InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.java:381)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.internal.InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.locateTableInNamespace(InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.java:346)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.extract.internal.InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.getTable(InformationExtractorJdbcDatabaseMetaDataImpl.java:241)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.internal.exec.ImprovedDatabaseInformationImpl.getTableInformation(ImprovedDatabaseInformationImpl.java:109)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.internal.SchemaValidatorImpl.performValidation(SchemaValidatorImpl.java:97)
at org.hibernate.tool.schema.internal.SchemaValidatorImpl.doValidation(SchemaValidatorImpl.java:67)
at org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidator.validate(SchemaValidator.java:65)
at org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidator.main(SchemaValidator.java:75)
at org.ginger.hiberevolvetest.SchemaValidatorTest.main(SchemaValidatorTest.java:15)

thanks, Richard