You can only havin this if you came from a not stable version to 3.7 as we have changed the database columname. If you come from 3.6.5 it should work.

Just tested an upgrade from 3.6.5 to rc3 and could not replicate this

It is direct from 3.6.5.
Database says its up-to-date.
As I mentioned when I take another site it works fine.
Maybe we wait if somebody else has this. In the meantime I will test a little.

could you have used this site to test some patches?

I always take e copy (Akeeba) from production to test.

But I have an idea and will try out if that is the cause.

Yes.
If you test (more than once) go to the database and delete all the old tables (don't trust on the delete old tables in Kickstart.php).
No error anymore.
I will close this.

I hadn't tested Fields before but have a new site which was installed using Joomla 3.7 Beta 2 and have since updated to rc2 then rc4. In Articles if I go to Fields I get "Unknown column 'a.name' in 'field list'" with the following showing under Extensions: Database:

Database schema version (in #__schemas): 3.7.0-2017-04-19.
Update version (in #__extensions): 3.7.0-rc4.
Database driver: mysqli.
145 database changes were checked successfully.
173 database changes did not alter table structure and were skipped.

Yes. this is expected behavior as there is no supported updatepath between dev versions.

OK - so what should I do to go from an RC to 3.7.0 - I tried installing 3.7.0 from rc4 but still get the same error

so what should I do to go from an RC to 3.7.0

There is no supported way to do that ;) But you can change the database colum name by your self in the database..

You will need to manually update the database.

This is why there were big warnings not to use the beta or release candidates

OK thanks