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The naming conventions page sets out Wikipedia's policy on how to name pages. The policy is supplemented and explained by the guidelines linked to this policy, which should be interpreted in conjunction with other policies, particularly the three core content policies: Verifiability, No original research and Neutral point of view.

Overview

This page sets out Wikipedia's policy on how to name articles. It consists of this overview, some general principles explaining how the criteria listed here are achieved, and a set of conventions applied to articles as a whole, or those in particular subject areas. The page is supplemented by naming guideline pages, which explain and enhance this naming conventions page.

Generally, the objective is to optimize titles with regard to the following criteria:

• Recognizability – Article titles are those which most English speakers will understand from the title what the article is about. This is often cited as the "Principle of least astonishment".
• Prevalence in reliable sources – Since Wikipedia is source-based, article titles reflect the usage of reliable sources, on which the articles are based. This is closely related to recognizability, as the dominant use in sources is likely to be recognized by most readers.
• Ease of searching and linking – Article titles use the term by which readers are most likely to search for the article and to which editors will most naturally link from other articles.
• Precision – Article titles are precise and unambiguous. Good article titles identify precisely what the subject of the article is, so readers do not have to go into the body of the article to determine if they're in the right place; excessive precision is nonetheless avoided. In cases where otherwise natural titles are ambiguous, precision is achieved through disambiguation.
• Consistency – Similar articles are generally given similar titles. This is often achieved by specific naming conventions being adopted for specific types of articles.

In addition, there is an unavoidable technical requirement:

• Uniqueness – Wikipedia's software does not allow two distinct articles to have exactly the same title.

In cases where these criteria are in conflict with one another, the resulting questions are resolved by discussion towards building consensus, always with these principles in mind.

For information on the procedure for renaming an article, see Help:Moving a page and Wikipedia:Requested moves.

Redirects should be created to articles that may reasonably be searched for or linked to under two or more names (such as different spellings or former names). Conversely, a name that could refer to several different articles may require a disambiguation page.

General principles

Use common names

Convention: Name articles in accordance with what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize – usually the most commonly used name in verifiable reliable sources in English. The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists.

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names).

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope; avoid over-precision.

All articles must, by the design of Wikipedia, have a unique name. If there are several articles with the same name, it may be that one concerns the primary topic for that name; if so, that one keeps the common name, and the others must be disambiguated. If alternative common names exist for a topic, using them may be the simplest way to disambiguate; if not, add a disambiguator in parentheses. The articles should be linked, to help readers get where they want to go, either to each other or to a disambiguation page, normally called topic or topic (disambiguation).

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) and Wikipedia:Disambiguation.

Use English words

Convention: Name pages in English unless the foreign form of a name has greater recognition by English-speaking readers. The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English usage (e.g., Besançon, Søren Kierkegaard and Göttingen, but Nuremberg, delicatessen and Florence). Other significant forms of the name should be given in the first line of the article. Sometimes the usual English version will be the same as the local form, as in Madrid; sometimes it will differ somewhat, as in Franz Josef Strauss; and rarely, as with Mount Everest, it will be completely different.

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).

National varieties of English

Convention: All national varieties of English spelling are acceptable in article names. American spellings need not be respelled to British standards, and vice versa; for example, both color and colour are acceptable and both spellings are found in article titles (such as color gel and colour state). However, an article title on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the variety of English appropriate for that nation.

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style, National varieties of English

Use standard English for titles even if trademarks encourage otherwise

Convention: Follow standard English text formatting for article names that are trademarks. Items in full or partial uppercase (such as Invader ZIM) should have standard capitalization (Invader Zim); however, if the name is ambiguous, and one meaning is usually capitalized, this is one possible method of disambiguation.

Exceptions include article titles with the first letter lowercase and the second letter uppercase, such as iPod and eBay.

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks).

Controversial names

See also: Wikipedia:Naming conflict

The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more. In particular, the current title of a page does not imply either a preference for that name, or that any alternative name is discouraged in the text of articles. Generally, an article's title should not be used as a precedent for the naming of any other articles.

Editors are strongly discouraged from editing for the sole purpose of changing one controversial name to another. If an article name has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should remain. When there is no other basis for a decision, the name given the article by its creator should prevail. Any proposal to change between names should be examined on a case-by-case basis, and discussed on talk pages before a name is changed. However, debating controversial names is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia. Some controversial names are the following: Roman Catholic Church vs. Catholic Church; BC/AD vs. BCE/CE; Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia vs. Republic of Macedonia vs. Macedonia; Palestinian Arabs vs. Palestinians vs. Palestinian People. There are many others.

Where articles have descriptive names, they must be neutrally worded. For example, the term allegation should be avoided in a title unless the article concerns charges in a legal case or accusations of illegality under civil, criminal or international law which have not yet been proven in a court of law.

Name construction

Lowercase second and subsequent words in titles

Convention: Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is almost always capitalized in English (for example, as in proper names and book titles). Thus, capitalize the second word in John Wayne and Art Nouveau, but not in Video game.

The first letter of a title is always capitalized (apart from exceptional cases such as eBay, as described at the technical restrictions page), but it is not necessary to capitalize the first letter when linking (for example, video game directs the reader to Video game).

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization).

Prefer singular nouns

Convention: In general, only create page titles that are in the singular, unless that noun is always in a plural form in English—such as scissors or trousers—or concerns a small class—such as Arabic numerals or Bantu languages—that requires a plural.

Category names follow different pluralization conventions, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories).

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals).

Prefer spelled-out phrases to abbreviations

Convention: Avoid the use of abbreviations, including acronyms, in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known by its abbreviation and is widely known and used in that form. NATO, NASA, laser, radar, and scuba are good examples of acronyms that are commonly thought of as words. On the other hand, abbreviations like assn and UK should not be used, although UK (for United Kingdom) is acceptable for use in disambiguation.

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations).

Avoid definite and indefinite articles at the start of names

Convention: Include the definite article ("the") or indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name only if it would be capitalized in running text, such as would be the case for the title of a work such as a novel or the name of an organization.

Examples: Netherlands not The Netherlands; but The Gambia, The Hague, The Old Man and the Sea and The Times.

Rationale, specifics and exceptions: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name).

Use of "and"

Sometimes two or more closely related or complementary concepts are most sensibly discussed on a common page rather than a page each. Where possible, use a name covering all cases: for example, Endianness covers Big-endian and Little-endian, both of which are disambiguation pages that direct to it. Where an overarching name is not practicable, use each individual name in the article title, joined by "and". Examples: Acronym and initialism, Pioneer 6, 7, 8, and 9, Promotion and relegation. Each word should redirect (or be linked from a disambiguation page) to the combined name, e.g., Pioneer 8. If there is no obvious ordering, place the more commonly encountered word first where applicable. If one is not commonly encountered first place the words alphabetically. Either way, the reverse-ordered name should exist as a redirect (e.g., Initialism and acronym).

Avoid use of "and" in ways that appear biased. For example, the article is Islamic terrorism; Islam and terrorism is a redirect to it.

Redirect adjectives to nouns

Convention: Adjectives (such as democratic) should redirect to nouns (in this case, democracy).

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (adjectives).

Use gerund of verbs

Convention: Use the gerund of verbs (the -ing form in English) unless there is a more common form for a certain verb; for example, cooking.

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (verbs).

Special characters

See also: Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis

For technical reasons, the characters # < > [ ] | { } cannot be used in page titles. There are also certain restrictions on titles containing colons, periods and certain other characters. For details and workarounds, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions).

Separate accent-like and/or quote-like characters (including, but not limited to ʻ, ʾ, ʿ, ᾿, ῾, ‘, “, ’, ”, ^c, combining diacritical marks combined with a "space" character) should be avoided in page names. A common exception is the apostrophe ' character (e.g., Anthony d'Offay), which should, however, be used sparingly (e.g., Shia instead of Shi'a).

Non-language characters such as "♥", "★", and "*", sometimes found in advertisements or logos, are not the common English usage. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).

For words containing letters with diacritics (accent marks), see Naming conventions (use English). If dashes are used in page names, a redirect using hyphens must be provided (see also Manual of Style (dashes)).

Avoid non-alphanumeric characters used only for emphasis

To maintain the functionality of alphabetical indexing, article titles should not begin with non-alphanumeric (i.e. anything other than A–Z or 0–9) characters if possible. For example, if an article title is a quote, do not enclose it in quotation marks.

Example: To be, or not to be is the article, "To be, or not to be" is a redirect to that article.

Non-alphanumeric characters may still be appropriate if a common term for the article is generally expressed as a non-alphanumeric phrase.

Example: *-algebra

Disambiguation

See the sections of the disambiguation guideline dealing with naming the disambiguation page and naming the specific topic articles.

Subpages

Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles

Since Transport in Azerbaijan could just as well be considered a subdivision of transport as of Azerbaijan, do not use a name like Azerbaijan/Transportation (the old Wikipedia software created a subpage when the article name contained a forward slash; this feature is discontinued for articles, but you may use it on user, portal, project and talk pages).

Subsidiary articles

The present convention for articles providing more detail on a given topic is using the {{Main|<toppage>}} and {{Details|<subpage>}} templates, in accordance with Wikipedia:Summary style, and the guidance on how to avoid POV content forks. Such templates are placed under a section header, each instance of these templates providing a link to a subpage.

Occasionally, these subsidiary pages—if they contain content that is only relevant as an elaboration of a shorter paragraph on the main page—can have more complex page names; that is, if they are only intended to be accessed by a link from the main article. For example, Isaac Newton has Isaac Newton's early life and achievements as one of its pages on sub-topics.

However, if a "common name" for such subsidiary page is possible, that is always preferred.

Specific conventions and other guidelines

Aircraft names

Aircraft names are too varied to give full guidelines here; see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft).

Animals, plants, and other organisms

See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of life/Article titles
See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)
See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora)

Each WikiProject can decide on its own rules for capitalization. Common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should generally be written in lower case—for example, "oak" or "lion". There are a limited number of exceptions to this:

1. Automatic capitalization of the first letter of a page name, example: clicking bluebarred pygmy sunfish goes to a page of which the title reads "Bluebarred pygmy sunfish";
2. Proper nouns within common names should be capitalised, example: Allyn Smith's banded snail;
3. For specific groups of organisms, there are specific rules of capitalization based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms. These should ordinarily be followed:
   • Official common names of birds are normally capitalized
4. In a very few cases, a set of officially established common names are recognized only within a country or a geographic region. Those common names may be capitalized according to local custom but it should be understood that not all editors will have access to the references needed to support these names; in such cases, using the general recommendation is also acceptable.

In a hyphenated name, the part after the hyphen is not capitalized. For example, White-tailed deer, Red-winged Blackbird, Wilson's Storm-petrel. If in doubt, check with a field guide or official list.

When you create a new entry, whatever the capitalization chosen, always create a redirect in the alternative case. For example, name the entry Bald Eagle but create a redirect to it from bald eagle or vice versa. Creating the redirect is not optional, but will not be needed for single word species names (see: Wikipedia:Redirect). There are some rare instances where lower case and capitalized versions have different meanings. Suitable links or disambiguation should then be used (see: Wikipedia: Naming conventions (precision)#Minor spelling variations).

See also: Capitalization

Armenian

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Armenian)

Astronomical objects

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (astronomical objects)

Baseball players

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (baseball players)

Books – literary works

Convention: Use the title of the work as the article's title, following all applicable general conventions.

To disambiguate, add the type of literary work in parentheses, such as "(novel)", "(novella)", "(short story)", etc. You may use "(book)" to disambiguate a non-fiction book. If further disambiguation is needed, add the author's surname inside the parentheses: "(Orwell novel)", "(Asimov short story)", etc.

Rationale, specifics and exceptions: see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)

Broadcasting

Radio and television stations in countries where call signs are customarily used, such as North America, should always be titled with the official call sign as assigned by that country's regulatory authority. In places where call signs are not normally assigned to broadcast stations, the article title should be the officially registered name of the station, or else the name by which the station most commonly identifies itself (for instance, Voice of Russia or Radio Sawa). Many countries have stations or networks with similar names (e.g., "Radio One" in much of the English-speaking world). Those article titles should instead be chosen to reduce the possibility for confusion and title duplication as much as possible. In places with a mix of call signs and station names, such as most of Central America, South America and Australia, the station name should normally be used, except when the call sign is well-known.

See also #Television (industry and programming) below.

North America

The official call sign can usually be determined by checking with the FCC's Common Database System (fcc.gov), Industry Canada's Spectrum Direct (sd.ic.gc.ca), or COFETEL's PDF station listings (cofetel.gob.mx). Be aware that many periodicals and even stations themselves do not always use correct call signs. Also be aware that not all call signs are four letters; in Mexico they often have five or six, and in all three countries they may have as few as three.

If the official call sign has a suffix (-CA, -DC, -FM, -LD, -LP, and -TV are the only suffixes currently in use in the United States; only -FM and -TV elsewhere), a redirect or disambiguation should be added for the call sign without the suffix. For stations which do not have a suffix, if disambiguation is necessary (because the official call sign conflicts with an airport code or acronym), place the type of service in parentheses; for example, "KSFO (AM)" or "KDFW (TV)". Note that American and Mexican stations generally have a suffix only if they share their call sign with another station on a different broadcast band, but with the exception of CBC-owned television stations with a call sign in the format CB-(-)T, Canadian stations always have a suffix whether the call sign is shared or not. See North American call sign for more information on assignment practices.

Alternate brand names such as "Fox 25", "The Edge", "Q107" or "Jack FM" are very rarely unique, and "Jack FM Toronto" or "Q107 Memphis" are not appropriate article titles. A brand name may, however, be created as a redirect or a disambiguation page where appropriate.

Where a single broadcast outlet operates several transmitters with different call signs, create the article at the call sign which is considered the primary station, and make the other call signs redirects to that call sign. Where a station has changed call signs, please put the station's entire history in its current call sign, as the old call signs may subsequently be reassigned to new stations. For defunct stations, a title containing some form of disambiguation, such as WVUE (Delaware), may be advisable.

Where a broadcast outlet operates a low-power transmitter as part of a major national network, the same content is often duplicated to a digital subchannel of a full-power TV station or to a local cable television operation. If any independent ITU callsign exists (even with a broadcast translator-like numbering or suffix pattern like W47CK or WNYF-CA) this should be used as the unique identifier even where it is the weaker signal.

The notability of broadcasts carried only on digital subchannels or cable TV depends largely on content; see Wikipedia:Notability. A channel originating content under a major network affiliation unrelated from that of the parent station may in some circumstances qualify for an article but, as a digital subchannel, its legal on-air identity technically remains that of the parent station. A WWTI-DT2 subchannel, for instance, does not receive a unique legal callsign distinct from the parent WWTI-TV, even though it may used to carry entirely different national network affiliations or content from the main channel.

Subchannels with related network content (such as NBC and NBC Weather Plus, or PBS, PBS World and PBS Create) should be treated as one entity and kept in the main article for the parent station. The same is true of purely local content, such as 24-hour news or weather reports. Fictional callsigns (such as WBU (The CW Plus)) should be replaced with names based on the valid calls of the parent station, where such exist (for instance, WKTV-DT2). There is no means to prevent a fictional callsign from being duplicated later as a valid ID on a real station in some other region.

Burmese

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Burmese).

Categories

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories).

Chemistry

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry) also section below #Isotopes and Nuclides

Chinese

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)

Comics

Convention: In the first instance, use (comics).

Rationale and specifics: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics).

Companies

Convention: The legal status of the company (such as Inc., plc or LLC), is not normally included (for example, Microsoft Corporation, Aflac Incorporated, and GMAC LLC). When disambiguation is needed, the legal status, main company interest, or the suffix "(company)" can be used to disambiguate (for example, Target Corporation, BT Group, Converse (company), or Be Inc.). As a rule, common usage is frequently preferred (such as with The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. or simply DuPont for E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company).

Rationale and specifics: see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)

Country-specific topics

Convention: In general, country-specific articles and categories should be named using the form: "(item) of (country)". See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics).

Elections

Convention: Use the format "Demonym type election, date", for example "Canadian federal election, 1867". For future elections of uncertain date one can use the Next Irish general election format; for special elections or elections of subnational parliaments, use the Scottish Parliament election, 2007 and Nepalese Constituent Assembly election, 2007 format.

Events and incidents

This set of conventions covers current and historical events such as military conflicts and terrorist incidents.

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events)

Film titles

Convention: Films often share the same name as other films, books or terms. When disambiguating a film from something else use "(film)" in the title when only one film had that name and (YEAR film) in the title when there are two or more films by that name (example: Titanic (1997 film)).

Rationale and specifics: see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films)

Government departments, ministers etc.

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government departments and ministers)

Historical names and titles

See: #People

Initials

The convention dealing with initials is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Middle names and abbreviated names.

Ireland and Irish names

See: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles)

Isotopes and nuclides

Convention: Isotopes when written out are common nouns, and should begin with the uncapitalized element name, followed by a hyphen (not an em dash or en dash) and then the mass number. Examples are carbon-14 and uranium-235. The uncapitalized name of elements when written out (but not in symbol form) follows IUPAC convention for chemical elements, and is not changed when the isotope is written out. See IUPAC Provisional Recommendations for the Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (2004) (online draft of an updated version of the "Red Book")

Japanese

See: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)

Korean

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean)

Languages, both natural and programming

Convention: Languages which share their names with some other thing should be suffixed with "language". If the language's name is unique, there is no need for any suffix. For example, English language, but Esperanto.

Language families and groups of languages are pluralized. Thus, Niger-Congo languages rather than 'Niger-Congo language', and Sino-Tibetan languages rather than 'Sino-Tibetan language'.

Programming languages should be disambiguated with the suffix "(programming language)" if the name is not unique enough. For example, VBScript, but Python (programming language).

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages)

Latter Day Saint movement

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints)

Legislation in the United Kingdom

Acts should be titled with the short name form and then the year, without any comma between them (i.e., [[Foo Bar Act 1234]]). There should be a redirect from [[Foo Bar Act]] if the act is uniquely named.

If several acts have the same short name, [[Foo Bar Act]] should

• redirect to the most commonly-used act of the series if one exists (e.g., the Data Protection Acts) or
• serve as a disambiguation page (e.g., Representation of the People Acts) or
• redirect to [[Foo Bar Acts]] (plural) which should be an article about the series of acts.

If two acts are passed with the same name and year in two parliaments as different enactments of the same piece of legislation, then have just one article (e.g. the Act of Union 1707); but if the two acts are different pieces of legislation, use parenthetical disambiguation based on jurisdiction or entity (e.g. [[European Communities Act 1972 (UK)]] and [[European Communities Act 1972 (Ireland)]]).

Lists

Convention: Put a list of Xs as list of Xs, rather than Xs, famous Xs, listing of important Xs, list of noted Xs, list of all Xs, etc.

Rationale and specifics: see: Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Naming conventions

Long lists

In the event that a list becomes so long as to necessitate a split, follow the guidance at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists), where the preferred style given is for List of foos: A, and for ranges: List of foos: W-X-Y-Z

Literary works

See above: #Books – literary works

Manuscript names

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (manuscript names).

Medicine

See: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) #Naming conventions.

Mormonism

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints)

Mongolian

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Mongolian)

Music

Pieces of music

Convention: Name the article in its most common form, adding the composer's surname in parentheses after it if more than one piece has that title. For example, War Requiem, Violin Concerto (Berg), Symphony No. 6 (Mahler).

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (pieces of music)

Album and song titles and band names

Convention: In band names and titles of songs or albums, capitalize words that are not coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), prepositions (in, to, over), articles (an, a, the), or the word to when used to form an infinitive. Note that short verbs (Is, Are, and Do) and pronouns (Me, It, and His) are capitalized. Do not replicate stylized typography in logos and album art, though a redirect may be appropriate (for example, KoЯn redirects to Korn).

When necessary, disambiguation should be done using (band), (album), or (song) (such as Anthrax (band) or Off the Wall (album)); use further disambiguation only when needed (for example X (U.S. band), X (Australian band)). Unless multiple albums of the same name exist (such as Down to Earth), they do not need to be disambiguated any further. For example, Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album) is fine, but Off the Wall (Michael Jackson album) is unnecessary. Disambiguate albums and songs by artist and not by year unless the artist releases multiple albums with the same name. When a track is not strictly a song (in other words a composition without lyrics, or an instrumental that is not a cover of a song), disambiguation should be done using (composition) or (instrumental).

Operas

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (operas)

Numbers and dates

Articles about numbers and related meanings are at N (number) without commas, for example 1729 (number), not Seventeen hundred twenty-nine nor One thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine nor Number 1729 nor 1,729. The name 1729 itself is for the year 1729 AD. So use the name Form 1040, not 1040 (the year Macbeth became King of Scotland), and Intel 80386, not 386 (the year the Northern Wei Dynasty began to rule China).

Rationale and specifics: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)

Covered in that guideline:

• page names for articles on dates, on time periods, on numbers;
• the use of Arabic numerals as well as Roman numerals in page names;
• page names for articles on various topics containing a number and/or time indicator in the title.

Old Norse

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Norse mythology)

When one particular Anglicized form for a name is overwhelmingly most common and well known to the average English speaking person, it is used for the article title, e.g., Odin, Thor. When no particular Anglicized form can be said to be in common use in everyday English and English speaking scholars use the standardized Old Norse spelling, use the standardized Old Norse spelling except replace the o-ogonek character (ǫ) with the character 'ö'. We should endeavour to supply every variant of Anglicized spelling somewhere within the article, in the first paragraph when that is practical.

Organizations

Convention: For articles on organizations the general rule applies. That means: Name your pages with the English translation and place the original native name on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English media than the English form. Examples of the last are names of organizations in India, Ireland, Israel, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Quebec, Sri Lanka (English is or was an official language in most of these countries, which led to the general use of the native name), etc..

See also: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (political parties)

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)

People

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) starts from the idea that names in the format <First name> <Last name> are usually the least problematic as page name for an article on a single person.

The guideline concentrates on these cases where this format is not the most obvious, for example, how to deal with middle names, with Iberian naming customs, with names of people from countries where the surname comes first, with disambiguation (when several people share the same name), etc.

The people NC guideline has absorbed some content previously in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) (e.g., abbreviations in names of people), or separate topics on this page, that were not mentioned in specific guidelines until now (e.g., Spanish family names).

Monarchs and nobility

For most Western royalty and nobility, see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)

Ancient Romans

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ancient Romans)

Clergy

Includes popes, cardinals, bishops, etc. See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Clergy)

Places

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)

Poland-related topics

See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland/Conventions

Russian names

Some Russian names have a common English spelling. For others, use Wikipedia's modified BGN/PCGN romanization, documented at Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian.

School names

Schools can share the same name. When disambiguating a school because an article already exists, the most general locale of the school should be used in parentheses to all articles, and a disambiguation page should be created.

For other recommendations and current discussions see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools).

Ship names

Convention: Articles about ships that have standard prefixes should include them in the article title; for example, HMS Ark Royal, USS Enterprise. Note that although in text the name but not the prefix is italicized, this is not indicated in the article name, so pipe links are used, for example for the above [[HMS Ark Royal|HMS ''Ark Royal'']], [[USS Enterprise|USS ''Enterprise'']]. Articles about ships that do not have standard prefixes should be titled as (Nationality) (type) (Name); for example, Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov ([[Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov|Russian aircraft carrier ''Admiral Kuznetsov'']]).

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships)

Sports teams

See Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Naming convention for sports teams

(1) In cases where there is no ambiguity whatsoever as to the official spelling of a club's name in English, the official name should be used.

(2) In cases where there is some ambiguity as to the official spelling of a club's name in English, the name most commonly used by the English-language media should be used (as determined using the number of hits at Google News).

• Tests for "no ambiguity": the club's official web site has an English-language section; and that name has been adopted at least by a significant section of the English-language media; and it is recognizable; and it is not easily confused with other clubs' names.

• Tests for "ambiguity": the club's official web site does not have an English-language section; or it is not broadly recognizable; or it is easily confused with other clubs' names.

Where an article is clearly about a particular sport you do not need to put a prefix or suffix like 'RLFC', 'CCC' or 'FK' throughout the article text, merely in the title. For example, FC Barcelona is the category name but throughout the body Barcelona is sufficient. However, for cross-sport references it may be appropriate, ie "St Helens share Knowsley Road stadium with St Helens FC". Do not extend this to nicknames as they may confuse unfamiliar users.

For North American teams, use both place and nicknames; ie Detroit Red Wings rather than Detroit or Red Wings, as non-Americans may not know who the Bears or the Falcons are and it aids cross-referencing. Furthermore, where there is more than one team from a city – New York Giants and New York Jets, for example – this specificity is essential.

Stub templates and categories

See details in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming conventions.

In general, stub templates use nouns in lower case letters except where proper names are involved. Abbreviations are allowed but only when completely unambiguous (or one of a small set of commonly used abbreviations such as geo, bio, hist for geography, biography and history), and are otherwise discouraged. Hyphens, rather than spaces, are used, though words may be run together if they form part of a compound noun. Thus, for example, {{France-bio-stub}} for French people, but {{FrenchPolynesia-geo-stub}} for the geography of French Polynesia.

Stub categories are also only capitalised for proper nouns, and use noun forms. Thus there is a Category:Biology stubs, rather than Category:Biological stubs or Category:Biology Stubs.

Current exceptions to these rules are in the process of being converted to conform with these conventions.

Television (industry and programming)

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television) also #Broadcasting above

Time (dates, periods, etc.)

See above: #Numbers and dates

Appendices

Proposing

See below Proposed conventions and guidelines under construction

Main page: Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines § Proposing guidelines and policies

New naming conventions and naming conventions guidelines should be proposed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, and explained at Requests for comment, the Village Pump, and any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, the proposal can be adopted and listed below. A central discussion, with notification through {{RFCpolicy}}, can be useful in forming and demonstrating a strong consensus. New naming conventions for specific categories of articles often arise from WikiProjects.

Proposals

Proposed conventions

Wine and viticulture: Convention: If there is need for disambiguation, in the first instance, use (wine) to indicate an article falls under the field of wine and viticulture. Exceptions are when the topic better corresponds with (grape) or (wine region).

Proposed guideline pages

• Armenian names: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Armenian)
• Cyrillic: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic)
  • Belarusian names
  • Bulgarian names
  • Macedonian names
  • Serbian names
  • Ukrainian
• Greek: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Greek)
• Hebrew and Israeli names: Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:Hebrew and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew)
• India and Sri Lanka: people – Dharmic – Indic: see
  • Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people of India and Sri Lanka) (currently only containing info on the use of honorifics)
  • Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Dharmic)
  • Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic)
• Macedonia-related topics: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Macedonia)
• New Zealand place names: see Wikipedia:Naming Conventions (New Zealand).
• Norway-related topics: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Norway
• Numismatics (currencies, coins and banknotes): Competing/overlapping proposals: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Currencies and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style#Article titles.
• Sexuality: Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and Sexuality.
• Tibetan: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan)
• Vietnamese: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Vietnamese)
• Video games: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines/Naming

Inactive

These conventions have failed to find consensus and retained for historical reference; however, please feel free to revive discussion on a particular subject, either by using the Talk page or start a discussion at the Village pump.

• Arabic names: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic)
• Buildings and landmarks: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (architecture) → concentrating on buildings (and landmarks?) (architects are covered by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people).)
• Czech names: see Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech)
• Diacritics (on standard letters): see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) and Wikipedia:Use diacritics
• Ethno-cultural labels: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Ethno-cultural labels in biographies
• Greek and Turkish named places: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Greek and Turkish named places)
• Polish monarchs: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Polish rulers) – Rejected guideline, but included here since many other pages are linking to this location.
• Roads and Highways: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways – Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions
• Seasons: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Seasons)
• Schools: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools)
• Subnational entities: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (subnational entities)
• Swedish names: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish)

Geographic locations

• Cities: Wikipedia:Naming policy poll – Poll re: official location name (generally cities) different than what is used in most English resources

• Lithuania and Poland cities: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Lithuania and Poland cities)

• Provinces: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (provinces)
• Subnational entities – Wikipedia:Naming conventions (subnational entities)

Sports

• Football in Australia: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Football in Australia)
• Sports teams: Naming convention for sports teams
• Hockey: Naming conventions (hockey) and Naming conventions (ice hockey)

See also

• Wikipedia:Name mush by culture (essay)
• Wikipedia:Non-unique personal name