Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)

This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention.

Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

This page in a nutshell: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things.

Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things. The principal exception is in the case of naming royalty and people with titles. For details of the naming conventions in those cases, see the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) page. This is however not the only exception, see "Exceptions" section below.

Determine the common name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject. As a rule of thumb, when choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of Wikipedia put into the search engine?

Remember that a link is the title of the page it links to.

Titles should be as simple as possible without being too general.

For example, the page about jazz should simply be called "Jazz", not "Jazz music", because "jazz" refers in almost any context to a genre of music, and the simpler title makes linking easier. Adding the word "music" is redundant.

On the other hand, Country music should be on a page called Country music because the word "country" has other referents besides the musical genre. If we ignore potential ambiguity, the ideal of simplicity can be at odds with the ideal of precision.

Rationale

Names of articles should be the most commonly used name for the following reasons:

We want to maximize the likelihood of being listed in external search engines, thereby attracting more people to Wikipedia. For example, one pagename is Jimmy Carter and not "James Earl Carter, Jr."; the string "Jimmy Carter" in the page title makes it easier to find: search engines will often give greater weight to the contents of the title than to the body of the page. Since "Jimmy Carter" is the most common form of the name, it will be searched on more often, and having that exact string in our page title will often mean our page shows up higher in other search engines.
We want to maximize the incidence that people who make a link guessing the article name, guess correctly; people guessing a different name may think there is no article yet, which may cause duplication.
Using a full formal name requires people to know that name, and to type more.
We respect our readers and name our articles as they do, just formulating their collective needs.

Redirects help, but give a slightly unattractive "redirected from" announcement at the top of the page. On the other hand, if someone reads or hears "Elizabeth II", and wonders who might be meant by that, the "(Redirected from Elizabeth II)" at the top of the page describing the monarch in question puts the reader at ease that this was the intended queen: the "redirect" message indicates that the system hasn't been playing tricks, and that this was the page to which you were supposed to be led.

Examples

Examples of common names that Wikipedia uses instead of a more elaborate, more formal or more scientifically precise version include (note that the latter is a redirect to the former):

Mohamed Atta (not Alleged 911 hijacker Mohamed Atta - while articles on persons not notable other than for one event should focus on the event, not the person, it is not practical to include the event in the article name)
George W. Bush (not George Walker Bush)
Tony Blair (not Anthony Charles Lynton Blair)
Julius Caesar (not Imperator Gaius Iulius Caesar Divus)
Bill Clinton (not William Jefferson Clinton)
Venus de Milo (not Aphrodite of Melos)
Dog (not Canis lupus familiaris)
Bill Gates (not William Henry Gates III)
John D. Grady (not Traveling Mike)
Guinea pig (not Cavia porcellus)
Pelé (not Edson Arantes do Nascimento)
Sea cucumber (not Holothurian)

Do not overdo it

In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative. For example a "common" name for a tsunami is "tidal wave" (this term being less often used for the tides-related tidal bore). For this reason, the Tidal wave page is a disambiguation page, with links to the two other pages, and not a page giving details about either tsunami or tidal bore.

Also, some terms are in common usage but are regarded as offensive (Mormon Church, for example). In those cases use widely known alternatives (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). When in doubt, check a mainstream reference work. A term can only be considered offensive if a verifiable, authoritative source can be quoted as citing it as such.

This does not mean that we should avoid using widely known pseudonyms like Mark Twain, Marilyn Monroe, Billy the Kid, or widely known common names of animals and other things. But it does mean that we need to temper common usage when the commonly used term is unreasonably misleading or commonly regarded as offensive to one or more groups of people.

Not sure if you are overdoing it?

If there is no agreement over whether a page title is "overdoing it", apply the guidelines at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision).

Exceptions

Many Wikipedia naming conventions guidelines contain implicit or explicit exceptions to the "common names" principle. Some of these exceptions are due to technical limitations, for example "C Sharp (programming language)", as "C#" is technically not possible as a page name.

Some of these exceptions follow from guidelines that give recommendations for enhanced precision, cleaner disambiguation and/or solution of naming conflicts, which might lead to article names that are rather "the most obvious" than strictly spoken "the most used". For example: Roger Andrew Taylor and Roger Meddows-Taylor while Roger Taylor (drummer) could indicate either of these two Roger Taylors.

Other exceptions are contained in the Manual of Style; for example the National varieties of English section in that guideline leads to fixed-wing aircraft being used instead of aeroplane or airplane, in order not to give precedence to either British or American spelling.

Some questions about the use of diacritics in article titles is discussed at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#Modified letters.

Several guidelines try to systematise certain types of article titles, for example article titles using abbreviations:

Acronyms: NASA (not N.A.S.A. or N. A. S. A.)
Abbreviating names of people: H. G. Wells (not H.G. Wells or HG Wells)

Other guidelines rather systematise titles of articles grouped by topic, for example MS Herald of Free Enterprise and not Herald of Free Enterprise, according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships). Plants, following disputes over the proper "common" names to use, are now automatically placed at their botanic name: Verbascum thapsus (Not Great Mullein), Ailanthus altissima (not Tree-of-heaven). See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora)

For articles on people some minor practical exceptions are contained in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) - these are however hardly sufficient to cover the complexities for naming royals and other nobility: hence Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles), and several other nobility-related Naming Conventions guidelines, contain many detailed exceptions.

Where common names might conflict with other uses, the disambiguation guideline is useful in determining a name to use.

Rationale

Examples

Do not overdo it

Not sure if you are overdoing it?

Exceptions

See also