Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Proper names

Proper names are names of persons, places, or certain special things. Typically in English, these are capitalized nouns. Names have considerable importance in the social fabric, sometimes beyond simple challenges of what is "correct" by one or another authority. As a consequence, names are frequently a source of conflict between editors from different backgrounds. One person's authoritative source may simply be another person's biased source. Therefore, in addition to setting certain rules and standards, this style page will hopefully aid the process of finding compromise when a name conflict arises. As with all Wikipedia styles, the "rules" laid out here are really suggestions. But it should be recognized by all that consistency in style is, if not necessary, at least contributory to a more professional product.

Editors should realize that their prior learning or point of view on any name is not necessarily the only point of view on the subject. As a source of knowledge, it is helpful for any article to provide alternative names where these are likely to be recognized by some sizable subset of the English-speaking population. Following a widely used name by one or more alternative(s) in parentheses is an acceptable way of pointing out that there exists other opinions on what a person or place may be called.

Place Names

Geographical or Place names are the nouns we use to describe specific places and geographic features. These names give rise most often to conflict because the same places are called different things by different peoples speaking different languages. The following considerations are offered:

• This is an English language encyclopedia, so for most geographical names of large and/or important features (countries, states, continents, oceans, seas, major cities) the English name is used in preference to any term that is clearly from a language other than English.

The article on Luxembourg provides an excellent example of presenting place names in more than one language. Note that an alternative English spelling is included in the introductory text and the official state names are given in the languages of the country at the top of the text box on the right side. The article demonstrates another good point. The article name is that most commonly used to refer to Luxembourg in English, and not necessarily the official English name: Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which is however the bolded name in the introductory paragraph. Geographical names in a language not official to the article's political entity (English excepted, of course) should NOT be listed as alternatives, except on the link to another (foreign language) Wikipedia.

• If an article is about an entity that has other places as members (see Council of Europe , for example), the listing of those places (that is, the members) should follow the official English version of the listing provided by the umbrella organization, whether politically correct or not. These would, of course, link to the article name used at Wikipedia.

• Many place names have a historical context that should be preserved, but common sense should prevail. There can be few places that have not been parts of more than one culture or have had only one name. An article about Junipero Serra should say he lived in Alta Mexico not the U.S. state of California because the latter entity did not exist at the time of Junipero Serra. The Romans invaded Gaul, not France, and Tabo M'Beki is the president of the Republic of South Africa, not of the Cape Colony.

• As features on the landscape get smaller, the existence of English equivalents to local language names becomes less likely. It is sometimes customary, as with personal names, to transliterate these place names so that they are better understood by an English speaker. This is a practice that is losing favor to preserving local spelling to the extent possible.

Personal Names

Personal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some non-human animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns these names are always first-letter capitalized, and generally not translated between languages. To cite from the Wikipedia article on Proper nouns:

The meaning of a proper noun, outside of what it references, is frequently arbitrary or irrelevant (for example, someone might be named Tiger Smith despite being neither a tiger nor a smith). Because of this, they are often not translated between languages, although they may be transliterated—for example, the German surname "Knödel" becomes "Knoedel" in English, as opposed to "Dumpling".

Clearly, recent personal names have but one correct spelling, although presentation (use of initials, middle names, nicknames, ertc.) can vary and still be correct. In these cases it is best to use a recognizable form for an article title, with redirects from other longer/shorter forms to the article. The most complete name (with titles) should appear at the beginning of the article to provide maximum information.

Names from history are less certain as to spelling, for a variety of reasons, but the further back one goes the less particular societies were about exact spelling, so variations are likely to exist. Persons with expertise in specific fields of history should provide input to decisions where these must be made or a controversy arises. Again, recourse to redirect pages can insure that all varients lead to a desired article.

Biological Common Names

Common names are the names given specific types of animals and plants. It is traditional with common names to use the name common to the place where the reference is being made, but this is not possible with Wikipedia, a text having in essence world-wide distribution. As in any human endeavor, there is always effort being expended to 'standardize' common names, especially among scientists (who developed a standard nomenclature to settle the problems posed by a plethora of common names referring to the same thing in some cases, or the same name referring to different things in other cases). Although one cannot help but wonder what sense of "common" was missed by attempting to settle on one common name for each species, success along these lines has actually been achieved by ornithologists.

Ornithologists also depart from tradition followed by most other biologists in insisting that the common names of birds be first-letter capitalized where the reference is to a particular species. Thus one can write about a penguin, or specifically about the Emperor Penguin , the latter being the proper (common) name of the species, Aptenodytes forsteri. Non-specialists may have difficulty determining which form to use in some cases (for example, is it mallard or Mallard?), but it is likely most references to bird species will eventually be seen and edited by an ornithologist.