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*AAA binti BBB (or AAA bte BBB) (''female'') |
*AAA binti BBB (or AAA bte BBB) (''female'') |
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where 'AAA' is the first name and 'BBB' is the father's name. The word ''bin'' means "son of"; likewise, ''binti'' means "daughter of". For example, [[Mahathir bin Mohamad]] is the name of the former Prime Minister of [[Malaysia]]. In the article, he is referred to as ''Mahathir''. |
where 'AAA' is the first name and 'BBB' is the father's name. The word ''bin'' means "son of"; likewise, ''binti'' means "daughter of". For example, [[Mahathir bin Mohamad]] is the name of the former Prime Minister of [[Malaysia]]. In the article, he is referred to as ''Mahathir''. |
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===Electiobs=== |
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Use the form - political division, date. IE. [[Canadian federal election, 1867]] |
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===Historical names and titles=== |
===Historical names and titles=== |
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There are many other specific issues still being discussed on the [[Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions|talk page]]. |
There are many other specific issues still being discussed on the [[Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions|talk page]]. |
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[[cs:Wikipedie:Název Älánku]] |
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[[da:Wikipedia:Navngivning]] |
Revision as of 23:49, 19 May 2004
A Wikipedia Policy Library volume
Naming conventions is a list of guidelines on how to appropriately create and name pages.
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.
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.
It is important to note that these are conventions, not rules written in stone. As the Wikipedia grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated. But when in doubt, follow convention.
General conventions
Lowercase second and subsequent words
Convention: Unless the term you wish to create a page for is a proper noun or is otherwise almost always capitalized, do not capitalize second and subsequent words.
Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) and Wikipedia:Canonization.
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 economics or trousers).
Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (pluralization)
Redirect adjectives to nouns
Convention: Adjectives should redirect to nouns.
Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (adjectives)
Use present participle of verbs
Convention: Use the present participle of verbs 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.
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 (NASA and radar are good examples).
Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms)
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 Transportation 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 special characters
Some special characters can not be used, or can, but give problems. For example you should not use a piping character (|), an asterisk (*), an ampersand (&), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]) in a name. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions).
Also, for naming pages the restriction to ISO-8859-1 is strict, no characters that are not ISO-8859-1 may be used. See Wikipedia:Special characters for a list of non-ASCII characters that are allowed.
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
First letter of each word should be capitalized, except for the first letter after a hyphen in hyphenated words. A redirect from the (various) uncapitalized forms should be made. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Article_titles_and_common_names
Arabic names
In an Arabic name, the format is as follows:
- AAA bin BBB (or AAA ibn BBB) (male)
- AAA binti BBB (or AAA bte BBB) (female)
where 'AAA' is the first name and 'BBB' is the father's name. The word bin means "son of"; likewise, binti means "daughter of". For example, Mahathir bin Mohamad is the name of the former Prime Minister of Malaysia. In the article, he is referred to as Mahathir.
Electiobs
Use the form - political division, date. IE. Canadian federal election, 1867
Historical names and titles
Convention: In general, use the most common form of the name used in English (not necessarily the name translated into English) and disambiguate the names of monarchs of modern countries in the format [[{Monarch's first name and ordinal} of {Country}]] (example: Edward I of England).
Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) and Wikipedia:History standards
Initials
Initials in people's names, or companies named after them, should be written with periods after them, with a space between the initials and the name, and between initials. Thus, W. E. B. Du Bois, I. F. Stone, T. E. Lawrence, and F. W. de Klerk. (Cf. Oxford Style Manual 3.2, Chicago Manual of Style 8.6) (under discussion, see: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions) An exception is a reference to someone using only initials, such as is ocassionally done in informal discourse in reference certain US presidents: FDR, LBJ, or JFK.
Acronyms such as IBM, NATO, and WYSIWYG are likewise written without periods (see: Naming conventions (acronyms)
Korean
See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean)
Japanese
See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese)
Movie titles
Convention: Oftentimes movies share the same name as other movies, books or terms. When disambiguating a movie from something else use (movie) in the title when only one movie had that name and (YEAR movie) in the title when there are more than one movies by that name (example: Titanic (1997 movie)).
Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (movies)
Languages, both spoken and programming
Convention: Languages which share their names with some other thing should be suffixed with "programming language" in the case of programming languages, or "language" in the case of spoken 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 Sanskrit.
Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages)
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, e.g. 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)
Spanish family names
In the Spanish-speaking world, individuals customarily carry both the their father's and mother's surnames. In the Anglophone world, they are generally referred to with just the paternal surname. For example, Augusto Pinochet rather than Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. However, their full Hispanic-style name is supplied at the top of the article. As an exception to this guideline, the maternal surname may be used to disambiguate between individuals with the same first and paternal surname. For example:
- Eduardo Frei Montalva, president of Chile 1964-1970
- Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, president of Chile 1994-2000
Years: use plain numbers only
Convention: In general the use of number-only page names should only be used for Year in Review entries. So call it Form 1040, not 1040, and Intel 386, not 386. That way, if we ever want to add a page about what happened in the year 1040 or the year 386, we won't have a collision with the other uses of numbers.
Numbers
Articles about numbers and related meanings are at N (number), e.g. 142 (number), not One hundred forty-two nor One hundred and forty-two nor Number 142. 142 is for the year (see above).
Conventions under consideration
Album titles
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 are not conjunctions (and, but, or, nor), prepositions (to, over, through) or articles (an, a, the). When necessary, disambiguation should be done using (band), (album) or (song) (such as Iron Maiden (band) or Insomniac (album)). 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.
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
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)
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)
Years in titles
Convention: In general, there are no special naming conventions for articles on recurring events, such as elections or the olympics. See: wikipedia:Naming conventions (years in titles)
Currency
Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (currency)
Mormonism
Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Mormonism)
Places
Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)
Ancient Romans
Convention: in progress, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ancient Romans)
Literary works
Suggested 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.
Identity
This is perhaps one area where wikipedians flexibility and plurality are an asset, and where one would not wish all pages to look exactly alike. Nevertheless, here are some guidelines:
- When naming an article about specific people or specific groups always use the terminology which those individuals or organizations use, self identification.
- Use the most specific terminology available, thus if someone is of Ethiopian descent one would describe them as Ethiopian, not African.
- If this is objectionable often a more general name is more neutral or more accurate. For example: List of African-American composers is acceptable, but List of composers of African descent is, in this case, more useful.
- Almost always use terms as adjectives rather than nouns, thus, black people, not blacks, gay people, not gays, adults with disabilities etc.
- Do not assume that any one term is the most inclusive or accurate.
- On the other hand, generalizing a subject is often the least offensive way to deal with it.
Sexuality
See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology.
Suffix
Page names should use the least number of suffix possible???
There are many other specific issues still being discussed on the talk page.