Solution for friendly enums

EnumEx.cs

public static class EnumEx
{
    public static string GetNormalizedString(this Enum value)
    {
        if (value == null)
            return string.Empty;

        var type = value.GetType();

        var fieldInfo = type.GetField(value.ToString());

        var attribs = fieldInfo.GetCustomAttributes(
            typeof(NormalizedStringAttribute), false) as NormalizedStringAttribute[];

        return attribs != null && attribs.Length > 0 ? attribs[0].NormalizedString : value.ToString();
    }
}

Examples.md

Usage

public enum Countries 
{
  Brazil,
  [NormalizedString("United States of America")]
  EUA,
  Jamaica
}

var brazil = Countries.Brazil;
var eua = Countries.EUA;

Console.Writeline(brasil.GetNormalizedString()); //Outputs "Brazil";
Console.Writeline(eua.GetNormalizedString()); //Outputs "United States of America"

NormalizedStringAttribute.cs

public class NormalizedStringAttribute : Attribute
{
    public string NormalizedString { get; private set; }

    public NormalizedStringAttribute(string normalizedString)
    {
        NormalizedString = normalizedString;
    }
}