Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography

The objective of this Manual of Style (or style guide) is to provide guidelines for maintaining visual and textual consistency. Adherence to the following guidelines is not required; however, usage of these guidelines is recommended. By maintaining consistency, Wikipedia will be read, written, edited, navigated, and used easier by both readers and editors.

New contributors are reminded that clear, informative, and unbiased writing is more important than presentation and formatting. Writers are not expected or required to follow all or any of these rules: the joy of wiki editing is that perfection is not required.

See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography

Opening paragraph

The opening paragraph should give:

1. Name(s) and title(s), if any (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles))
2. Dates of birth and death, if known (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death)
3. Nationality
4. What they did
5. Why they are significant

For example:

• Cleopatra VII Philopator (December 70 BC/January 69 BC – circa August 12, 30 BC) was a queen of ancient Egypt. She was the last member of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty to rule Egypt...
• Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch (1304 – 1374) was an Italian scholar, poet, and humanist, who is credited with having given the Renaissance its name and inventing the concept of the Dark Ages...

Names

While the article title should be the name by which the subject is most commonly known, the subject's full name should be given in the lead paragraph, if known. Many cultures have a tradition of not using the full name of a person in everyday reference, but the article should start with the complete version. For example:

• (from Fidel Castro): Fidel Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) ...
• (from François Mitterand: François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (October 26, 1916 – January 8, 1996) ...

In some cases, subjects have changed their names at some point after birth. In these cases the birth name should be given as well:

• (from Bill Clinton): William Jefferson Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) ...

Pseudonyms and common names

For people who are best known by a pseudonym, the birth name should usually appear first in the article, followed closely by the pseudonym. Follow this practice even if the article itself is titled with the pseudonym:

• Louis Bert Lindley, Jr. (June 29, 1929 – December 8, 1983), better known by the stage name Slim Pickens...

Alternatively, the birth name can appear in apposition to the pseudonym:

• E. B. White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985), born Elwyn Brooks White, was an American author, essayist, and noted prose stylist...

It is not always necessary to spell out why the article title and lead paragraph give a different name. In some cases of subjects using a familiar form of their name it may be so; however, care must be taken to avoid implying that a person who uses a familiar form of their name has therefore changed it. Therefore: "Johnny Reid "John" Edwards (born June 10, 1953) ..." is preferable to saying that John Edwards was born with the name Johnny Reid Edwards.

Honorific prefixes

Honorific prefixes should be used in the article text where appropriate, but not included in the entry title. For example:

• Sir Elton John
• Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu; Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa
• St John the Apostle; St Francis of Assisi; St Stephen
• Reverend Al Sharpton
• Dato' Seri Mahathir bin Mohamad

Exceptions to this rule include cases where titles or honorifics have been transformed into universally known names, as with Genghis Khan, Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa. Even the articles on Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin follow the general rule above.

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) for their use in article titles.

Subsequent uses of names

After the initial mention of any name, the person may be referred to by surname only. For example:

Fred Smith was a cubist painter in the 15th century. He moved to Genoa, where he met John Doe. Smith later commented: "D'oh!"

The person may be referred to by their first name in the case of royalty. Similarly, if someone has been knighted they may be referred to as Sir Steve or Dame Judy. Nobility may be referred to by their title if that form of address would have been the normal way to refer to them, for example Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester may become "the Earl of Leicester" or just "Leicester" in subsequent mentions. Be careful not to give someone a title too soon, for example use "Robert Dudley" or "Dudley" until his elevation to the peerage in 1563.

To disambiguate between siblings, use the surname of the article header to indicate that person, and use first names or complete names to indicate siblings.

See also

• Wikipedia:Autobiography
• Wikipedia:Criteria for Inclusion of Biographies
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography
• Wikipedia:Categorization of people