Wikipedia:Article titles

Naming conventions is a list of guidelines on how to appropriately create and name pages.

It is important to note that these are conventions, not rules written in stone. As Wikipedia grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated, and there may be cases where a particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate. But when in doubt, follow convention.

Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

Another way to summarize the overall principle of Wikipedia's naming conventions:

Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.

In addition to following the naming conventions it is also important to follow the linking conventions. Following consistent conventions in both naming and linking makes it more likely that links will lead to the right place.

If you wish to propose a new naming convention, do so on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, whilst also publicising the proposal at Requests for comment and the Village Pump, as well as at any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, it can be adopted as a naming convention and listed below.

General conventions

Lowercase second and subsequent words

Convention: Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: John Wayne and Art Nouveau, but not Computer Game).

Due to technical limitations inherent to the MediaWiki software, the first letter in an article title always needs to be a capital letter. Ordinarily this isn't a problem, but it poses an issue when a proper noun's first letter is lowercase (for example, eBay). The first letter of an internal wikilink need not be capitalized and will direct the reader to the same page (for example, computer game or Computer game can be used interchangeably as needed).

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

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).

Exceptions include Hermite polynomials, Arabic numerals, ... - see: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive5#SOME article titles should be plural

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

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

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.

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

Use English words

Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form.

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

Use common names of persons and things

Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things.

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

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings. If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.

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

Prefer spelled-out phrases to acronyms

Convention: Avoid the use of acronyms in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronym and is widely known and used in that form (laser, radar, and scuba are good examples).

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

Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name

Convention: If the definite or indefinite article article would be capitalized in running text, then include it at the beginning of the page name. This would be the case for the title of a work such as a novel. Otherwise, do not include it at the beginning of the page name.

Examples: The Hague, The Old Man and the Sea but: the Netherlands.

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

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

Since Transportation 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 and talk pages).

Be careful with some special characters

Some special characters either cannot be used or may cause problems. For example you should not use a piping character (|), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]) in a name.

Titles must not begin with an interlanguage link code followed by a colon. For example a page with the title FR:example will produce a "bad title" error. The same also applies to interwiki links.

For foreign names with accent marks, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions).

Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis

To maintain the functionality of Alphabetical Indexing and avoid needless redirect pages, page names should not begin with non alpha-numeric (A-Z,0-9) characters used solely for emphasis. Also keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a collection of standalone quotations, (see Wikiquote). If a quotation is worthy of an article do not use quotation marks to start the page name, just use the quotation.

Non alpha-numeric characters may still be appropriate if a common term for the article is generally expressed as a non alpha-numeric phrase. In these cases the character(s) are not being used solely for emphasis. Although a redirect page may be helpful in those cases.

Examples of improper article names: ****Encylopedia**** , !List of Things I like , "Catching Fish".

Example of proper non alpha-numeric naming: *69

Examples of proper article names about quotations: To be, or not to be , Cogito ergo sum

Other specific conventions

Aircraft names

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

Animals, plants, and other organisms

The capitalization on the common names of species has been hotly debated in the past and remains unresolved. As a matter of truce both capitalized and non-capitalized (except for proper names) are acceptable, but a redirect should be created from the alternative form. Scientific names are always written in italics. The first name (genus) is capitalized, the second (species) is not. Examples: Homo sapiens, Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor.
See: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Article_titles_and_common_names
See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)
See: Capitalization

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 in 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 and South America, the station name should normally be used, except when the call sign is well-known.

North America

The official call sign can be determined by checking with the FCC's Common Database System (fcc.gov), Industry Canada's Spectrum Direct (sd.ic.gc.ca), or COFETEL (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, -FM, -LP, and -TV are the only suffixes currently in use), 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: all full-power Canadian FM and TV stations have a suffix; most U.S. and many Mexican stations do 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.

Categories

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories).

Chemistry

Convention: This convention is in progress; see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry)

Chinese

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)

Comics

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics)

Elections

Use this form: political division, date. For example, Canadian federal election, 1867. For future elections of uncertain date one can use the 30th Irish general election format.

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

Identity

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (identity)

Initials

The convention dealing with initials is part of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)

Ireland and Irish names

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

Isotopes/Nuclides

Convention: Isotopes should begin with the capitalized element name, folowed by a hyphen (not —) and then the mass number. For example, Helium-10, or Uranium-235.

Japanese

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

Korean

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean)

Languages, both spoken and programming

Convention: Languages which share their names with some other thing should be suffixed with "language" in the case of spoken languages, or "programming language" in the case of programming languages. If the language's name is unique, there is no need for any suffix. For example, Python programming language and English language, but VBScript and 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'.

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

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 either redirect to the most commonly-used Act of the series if one does (e.g., the Data Protection Acts), or if not either serve as a disambiguation page (e.g., Representation of the People Acts) or redirect to [[Foo Bar Acts]] (plural) which would serve as 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, have just one article (e.g. the Act of Union 1707); if the two Acts are different pieces of legislation, use paranethetical disambiguation based on jurisdiction or entity (e.g., the European Communities Act 1972 in the UK and Republic of Ireland being at [[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. See wikipedia:list. Consider making a category instead of a list: categories are easier to maintain (but less flexible).

Literary works

See above:#Books - literary works

Manuscript names

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (manuscript names).

Mormonism

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Mormonism)

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 titles and band names

Convention: In titles of songs or albums, unless it is unique, the standard rule in the English language is to capitalize words that are the first word in the title and those that are not conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for), prepositions (to, over, through) or articles (an, a, the). When necessary, disambiguation should be done using (band), (album), or (song) (such as Anthrax (band) or Insomniac (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 Insomniac (Green Day album) is unnecessary. Disambiguate albums by artist and not by year unless multiple self-titled albums are released. 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), for example 142 (number), not One hundred forty-two nor One hundred and forty-two nor Number 142. 142 itself is for the year (AD).

Convention re. Years: In general the use of number-only page names should only be used for Year in Review entries. So name the article 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.

Organizations (such as political parties)

Convention: For articles on organizations (like political parties) 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 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) as well as some in Spain (Batasuna), Indonesia (Golkar), Iran (Mujahedden al-Khalq), Russia (Yabloko and Rodina), Republic of China (Taiwan) (Kuo Min Tang) and Cambodia (Khmer Rouge).

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 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)

Western Clergy

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Western clergy)

People of India and Sri Lanka

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people of India and Sri Lanka) (guideline proposal, currently only containing info on the use of honorifics)

Places

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)

City names

Convention: In general, there are no special naming conventions for cities, unless multiple cities with the same name exist.

Discussion, rationale, and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names)

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).

Specific countries

For conventions on the naming of places in other countries, see also:

• China Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)
• Japan Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)
• Korea Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean), which also gives guidance on the Sea of Japan (East Sea)
• The Republic of Ireland: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles)

Russian names

Many Russian names have a conventional English spelling. For others, use Wikipedia's modified BGN/PCGN transliteration, documented at Wikipedia:Transliteration of Russian into English.

School names

Convention: School article titles should use the full official name of the school as provided by the school itself (apart from conventionally not starting with a definite article).

Schools also 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 information and examples, see: Wikipedia:Schools#Article name

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, Soviet aircraft carrier Kuznetsov ([[Soviet aircraft carrier Kuznetsov|Soviet aircraft carrier ''Kuznetsov'']].

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

Slovenian vs Slovene

Convention:

• Articles with Slovene in the title should be redirected to main articles using Slovenian. (Exception: Articles about organizations that use Slovene). For the sake of consistency, "Slovenian" in the title demands the same term be used throughout that article. "Slovene" in the title demands the opposite. (Exception: specific material that reasonably requires inconsistent usage.)
• Naming conventions are not applicable to articles that use "Slovene" or "Slovenian" in the body text only. For these articles, either term is allowable, as long as its usage is consistent. For the sake of consistency, it is preferred that subsequent editors respect the terminology used by the originator of the article.
• Changes to subsequent material can be made to establish consistency with the originator, but please add a pointer to these guidelines on the talk page of the article to help prevent edit wars. Edits made solely to change one term to the other, overturning the usage of the original contributor and in opposition to reasons given above are discouraged, particularly if continued.

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Slovenian vs Slovene)

Stub templates and categories

see details in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines.

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.

Time (dates, periods, etc.)

See above: #Numbers and dates

Ukrainian names

See Romanization of Ukrainian for details of transliteration systems.

• Most personal names have a conventional English spelling, rendered phonetically. This is usually very close to transcription by the BGN/PCGN system, which is quite intuitive for English speakers to pronounce. Some Ukrainian names have conventional spellings that come from other languages, like Polish, transcription from Russian, transcription into German, etc.
• For geographic names in Ukraine, the Ukrainian National system is used. For historic reasons, many names are also presented in Russian, Polish, etc.
• Linguistics topics often use "scholarly", or "scientific transliteration" within the text.

Conventions under consideration

Airports

see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (airports)

Arabic names

Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic)

Companies

Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)

Computer and video games

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (computer and video games), regarding the disambiguation of video games that share the same name as the game series.

Currency

see below, #Numismatics (currencies, coins and banknotes)

Ethno-cultural labels in biographies

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Ethno-cultural labels in biographies

External links

Should external links of non-html type files (such as doc, pdf, and xls) be in the following format?

• World Port Rankings 2002, by metric tons and by TEUs, American Association of Port Authorities (xls format, 26.5kb)

Geographic names

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Geographic names

Hebrew and Israeli names

Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew)

Military units

Convention: getting started, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military units)

New Zealand placenames

New Zealand placenames are written simply as the place name, unless confusion is likely to occur with duplicated names within the country or outside it.

If confusion is likely with places outside New Zealand, then the format "Placename, New Zealand" is used, irrespective of the type of location (for example, Mount Hopkins, New Zealand). Confusion has to be likely, not merely possible: for example, Wellington, the capital, is known all over the world, whereas the other 30 or so places with the same name have fairly local significance only.

If the name is used for more than one type of place, then the type of place is given in parentheses (for example, Lake Tekapo (town)). (This convention is not formalised, but is general usage on NZ articles in Wikipedia).

Numismatics (currencies, coins and banknotes)

Competing/overlapping proposals: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Currency and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style#Article titles.

Polish monarchs

After debacle showing at Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Aftermath, the guideline proposal Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Polish rulers) is (re-)activated.

Roads in the United States

See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways

Sexuality

Convention: in progress, see: Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and Sexuality.

Subnational entities

Convention: in progress, see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (subnational entities)

Suffix

Convention: in progress. Page names should use the least number of suffixes possible???

Television series and shows

Convention: in progress. The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television)/poll has begun and will continue until February 15 to determine the naming convention.

Conventions currently archived

These conventions have so far failed to find consensus, 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.

Ohio school districts

Convention: inactive, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts)

Provinces

Convention: inactive, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (provinces)

More issues

There are many other specific issues still being discussed on the talk page.

See also

• Wikipedia:Naming conflict
• Wikipedia:Naming policy poll