Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)

"WP:USEENGLISH" redirects here. For the more concise policy on this (WP:UE), seeWikipedia:Article titles § Foreign names and Anglicization.For the related style guideline, seeWikipedia:Manual of Style § Spelling and romanization.For the talk page guideline, seeWP:ENGLISHPLEASE.For the language preference policy for cited sources, seeWikipedia:Verifiability § Non-English sources.

"WP:EN" redirects here. For other uses, seeWikipedia:EN (disambiguation).

"WP:ENGLISH" redirects here. For WikiProject English Language, seeWP:ENGLANG.

Thetitle of an articleshould generally use the version of the name of the subject that is most common in the English language, as you would find it inreliable sources(for exampleother encyclopedias and reference works, scholarly journals, and major news sources). This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources. Often this will be the local version, as withMadrid.Sometimes the usual English version will differ somewhat from the local form (Aragon,Venice,Normandy;Franz Josef Strauss,Victor Emmanuel III,Christopher Columbus). Rarely, as withGermanyorMount Everest,it will be completely different.

If an examination of the sources in an article shows that one name or version of the name stands out as clearly the most commonly used in the English language, we should follow the sources and use it. Whenever something else is demonstrably more common in reliable sources for English as a whole, and this is not a question ofnational varieties of English,use that instead.

Names not originally in aLatin Alpha bet,as with Greek, Chinese, or Russian, must betransliteratedinto characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English. Established systematic transliterations (e.g.,Hanyu PinyinandIAST) are preferred. Nonetheless, if there is a common English form of the name, this is preferred over a systematically transliterated name; thus, useTchaikovskyorChiang Kai-shek,even though those are unsystematic. For a list of transliteration conventions by language, seeWikipedia:RomanizationandCategory:Wikipedia Manual of Style (regional).

The native spelling of a name should generally be included in parentheses, in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the Anglicization isn't identical. Redirects from native and other historically relevant names are encouraged. Where there is an English word or anexonymfor the subject but a native version is more common in English-language usage, the English name should be mentioned but should not be used as the article title.

Include alternatives

The body of each article, preferably in its first paragraph, should list all frequently used names by which its subject is widely known. When the native name is written in a non-Latin script, this representation should be included along with a Latin Alpha bet transliteration. For example, theBeijingarticle should mention that the city is also known asPeking,and that both names derive from the Chinese nameBắc Kinh.It is also useful to have multiple redirects to the main article, for exampleSverigeis a redirect toSweden.If there is a significant number of alternative names or forms, it may be helpful to keep only the most common two or three in the first paragraph and a list of them in a separate section or footnote to avoid cluttering the lead; seeFreyrfor an example of this.

Modified letters

See also:Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Spelling and romanization,andWikipedia:Manual of Style § Ligatures

The use of modified letters (such asaccents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged; when deciding between versions of a word that differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, follow the general usage inreliable sourcesthat are written in the English language (includingother encyclopedias and reference works). Thepolicy on using common namesand onforeign namesdoes not prohibit the use of modified letters, if they are used in the common name asverifiedby reliable sources.

In general, the sources in the article, a Google book search of books published in the last quarter-century or thereabouts, and a selection of other encyclopaedias should all be examples of reliable sources; if all three of them use a term, then that is fairly conclusive. If one of those three diverges from agreement then more investigation will be needed. If there is no consensus in the sources, either form will normally be acceptable as a title.

Placeredirectsat alternative titles, such as those with or without diacritics. Add{{R to diacritics}}or{{R from diacritics}}below the redirect to properly categorize it, such as for print editions.

Search enginesare problematic unless their verdict is overwhelming; modified letters have the additional difficulties that some search engines will not distinguish between the original and modified forms, and others fail to recognize the modified letter because ofoptical character recognitionerrors.

One recurrent issue has been the treatment ofgraphemessuch asaeandoe.By and large, Wikipedia usesœandæto represent the Old Norse and Old English letters. For Latin- or Greek-derived words, useeorae/oe,depending on modern usage and thenational variety of Englishused in the article. German proper names should be treated with care and attention toEnglishpractice. Notice that even in German, combinations such asoeare used in some names rather thanumlauts(as inEmmy Noetherand, in modern German,Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).

Beware of overdramatising these issues. As an example,Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Ireland-related articlesmay be mentioned, which—as a side-effect—peacefullyregulated use of diacritics regarding Ireland-related articles before, during, and after an extensive dispute on the question of diacritics in 2005, such asInishmoreand notInis Mór,orTomás Ó Fiaichand notTomas O'Fiaich(see the aforementioned MoS page for details).

Established usage in English-language sources

If a particular name is widely used in English-language sources, then that name is generally the most appropriate, no matter what name is used by non-English sources.

Divided usage in English-language sources

Sometimes, English usage is divided. For example, US newspapers generally referred to the "Olympics in Torino",following official handouts; however, newspapers in other parts of the English speaking world referred to it taking place inTurin.In this case, we cannot determine which is "most common". Use what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article. Whichever is chosen, one should place a redirect at the other title and mention both forms in the lead.

Search-engine hitsare generally considered unreliable for testing whether one term is more common than another, but can suggest that no single term is predominant in English. If there are fewer than 700 hits,theactualcount (from the final page of hits)maybe accurate for the engine's particular corpus of English, but whether this represents all English usage is less certain. If there are more than 700 estimated hits, the number from the last pagewillbe wrong; a search engine loads only a limited number of hits, no matter how many there are.Counts over 1,000 are usually estimates, and may be extremely inaccurate.If several competing versions of a name have roughly equal numbers (say 603 for one variant and 430 for another), there may well be divided usage. When in doubt, search results should also be evaluated with more weighting given toverifiable reliable sourcesthan to less reliable sources (such as comments in forums, mailing lists and the like). Also, consult reliable works of general reference in English.

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.It is not our business to predict what term will be in use, but rather to observe what is and has been in use and will therefore be familiar to our readers. IfTorinooustsTurin,we should follow, but we should not leap to any conclusion until it does.

When there is evenly divided usage and other guidelines do not apply, leave the article name at the latest stable version. If it is unclear whether an article's name has been stable, defer to the name used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be astub.

No established usage in English-language sources

It can happen that an otherwise notable topic has not yet received much attention in the English-speaking world, so that there are too few sources in English to constitute an established usage. Very low Google countscan but need not beindicative of this.Ifthis happens, follow the conventions of the language in which this entity is most often talked about (GermanforGerman politicians,TurkishforTurkish rivers,PortugueseforBrazilian municipalitiesetc.).

If, as will happen, there are several competing foreign terms, a neutral one is often best.Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) § Multiple local namesand§ Use modern namesexpress some ideas on resolving such problems.

See also

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (proper names)– guideline for proper names, such as place names and personal names.
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names).More on use of alternate names, and of contemporary names and transliterations. Some advice may be applicable to non-geographic names.
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)– specific rules for Western royalty and nobility.
• Wikipedia:Romanization– an overview of the conventions for transliterating various languages into the Latin Alpha bet.
• Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (regional)– regional style manual sections covering how to write in English about various places and cultures.
• Wikipedia:Use modern language– encyclopedic writing is semi-formal, but contemporary; avoid old-fashion wording and style.
• Wikipedia:Use plain English– essay on using everyday English, not obscurantist, jargon-festooned, or otherwise obtuse, omphaloskeptic verbiage (like this).