Wikipedia:Official names

This is an explanatory essay about the Wikipedia:Article titles page.

This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community.

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This page in a nutshell: While common names are generally preferred over official names as article titles, there are some valid exceptions. These are documented in the specific-topic naming conventions.

People often assume that, where an official name exists for the subject of a Wikipedia article, that name is ipso facto the correct title for the article, and that if the article is under another title, then it should be moved. In many cases, this is contrary to Wikipedia practice and policy.

It's a very easy mistake to make, and a very common one. There are several places in which editors are urged to read the article title policy before proposing or supporting name changes, but for one reason or another, proposals based entirely on official or legal names just keep coming.

Wikipedia:Article titles is the relevant policy and reads in part:

Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources. In many cases, the official name will be the best choice to fit these criteria. However, in many other cases, it will not be.

One section of the article title policy says Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title (emphasis added).

Purpose of this page

This page summarises material from Wikipedia policy on article titles, the Wikipedia's Manual of Style, and other policies and guidelines.

It is particularly intended for new editors, who cannot be expected to have read all the policies and guidelines, and indeed are encouraged to be bold and edit without needing to do so.

It ought to contain only that which has been previously agreed and documented in official policies and guidelines and it ought to be entirely consistent with these.

Common name

The Article title policy was originally named Naming conventions. It was changed to its current title because experienced editors wished to break the link in some inexperienced editors' minds between the page name and the name of the subject of the article. This was a concern at the time because of some destabilising extended bickering and even page move wars over the "correct" name of an article.

A classic example is the article titled Liancourt Rocks. Its entry in lamest edit wars explains the details, but suffice to say there are two official names for the tiny islands and the two governments that claim sovereignty over the islets make diplomatic moves to try to get their name recognised as the official name used by the United States government.

The phrase "common name" (WP:COMMONNAME) has existed since before the change of the policy from "Naming conventions" to "Article title" and it does not mean the vernacular name (as described in scientific literature), instead it is a shorthand for the commonly recognizable name as shown by the prevalence of the name in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources (WP:UCRN). Following UCRN means that the article titles for most flora article are the scientific names not the vernacular names.

Originally article titles were chosen by their prevalence in all English language sources (both reliable and unreliable); in the early days this had the advantage of usually moving the Wikipedia article up onto the first page of an internet search. This led editors interested in specific fields to create subsidiary naming convention like naming conventions (flora) which were based on rules that tended to ignore the common name and title all flora articles with scientific names (even though they might not show up on the first page of an internet search for a plant).

In about 2006, it was agreed by editors to change the content policies so that Wikipedia articles ought to be supported by citations in reliable sources. This led to problems with article titles named after a search of all sources (reliable or not) with a different name from that used by the reliable sources cited in the article.

This meant that a link from another article, also using reliable sources, would not go directly to the article title, but to a redirect, so invalidating another article title consideration "[a title] that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles". It was also around that time that search engines (such as Google) were tweaked to place Wikipedia articles close to, or at the top of searches.

These two changes led to a discussion and agreement by editors that only usage in reliable sources is to be used to decide on an article title. This change was made in 2008; since then the policy has recommended using the commonly recognizable name.

As Wikipedia articles were and are usually in the first page returned by search engines, if an alternative less popular name is chosen, the page will usually still appear in the first page of an internet search (there are exceptions: when Popski's Private Army was moved to its official name, it failed to show up on the first page of internet searches).

This change in wording of the article titles policy bought it into line with the three content policies. It meant that the rules based naming conventions could be simplified as the UCRN is usually the name their rules tried to mandate. It also means that when editors mention "COMMONNAME" they are using internal jargon to mean the name as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources.

Valid use of official names

An official English name is a candidate for what to call an article, because somebody presumably uses it. It should always be considered as a possibility, but should be used only if it is actually the name most commonly used.

Official names used only in other languages often have no relevance at all. English usage overrides usage in other languages, so other languages would chiefly become relevant if the topic had never been described or discussed in English prior to the writing of the Wikipedia article; in which case, we should consider whether the subject is notable enough for an article (it may well be). Of course, that's not to say we should slavishly follow English sources either: there are cases where English usage is erratic or hasn't decided on a convention, and going back to a Latin-script original name will simplify things. (For example, Les Tuniques Bleues had a video game adaptation that was translated into English as "North and South", but anyone looking for the comic likely wouldn't recognize that name.)

There are a few subject areas in which the most common names for the articles are usually ambiguous. (For example, both Henry IV of England and Henry IV of France are commonly called "Henry IV".) In such cases, a systematic use of unambiguous but predictable names has been encouraged. Even the following minor deviations from the use of common names should be done carefully and with limited scope, to avoid controversy:

Name changes

Where an official name has changed we do give extra weight to independent reliable secondary sources published after the change, see WP:NAMECHANGES.

Rationale

Practicality

The preference for common names avoids several problems with official names:

Obscurity. Some official names are never used except in legal or other esoteric documents, or for theatrical effect.
Competing authorities. In some cases, an article subject may have several competing names, all of them in some sense official.
Changes to names. Official names may be changed at any time, at the whim of the authority concerned. Common names change more slowly, reducing the maintenance required to keep them accurate and current.
Propaganda. Some official names are inaccurate and deceptive for propaganda purposes.

Some types of article suffer more from each of these problems than others. Geographical names rarely suffer from frequent changes, but may suffer from several competing authorities, particularly in disputed and/or historically significant territories. Official names of unreleased games may change several times within a week, but there is only one authority, the vendor. Common drugs such as aspirin typically have official names (2-acetyloxybenzoic acid in the case of aspirin) that are sufficiently obscure as to be completely unknown and unrecognizable to the vast majority of their users. Official names of sponsored sports teams, tournaments and venues change whenever a sponsorship agreement begins or ends. Many countries and corporations have official names that are intended as propaganda or promotion rather than accurate identification, such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as the official name of North Korea.

In some cases it may be argued that the "longer" name is a descriptive name rather than part of the "official" name, see Talk:United States/FAQ "Reasons and counterpoints for the article title of "United States of America":" part. Like with Ireland/Republic of Ireland it could be argued that "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is the official description of the country while "United Kingdom" is the official name.

Culture

The use of common names also reflects the mainstream linguistic trend since about the mid-twentieth century away from the perceived stereotype of Victorian-era linguistic prescription. In essence, we use English as we find it. Trying to improve the consistency of English may or may not be a laudable thing, but Wikipedia is not the place to do it.

Theory

Official names are generally represented in primary sources, such as official websites, album covers, annual reports, press releases by involved parties, and so on, but Wikipedia consistently prefers secondary sources, which tend to favour common names instead.

Where there is an official name that is not the article title

Where an undisputed official name exists:

It should always be provided early in an article's introduction, bolded at its first mention and, where appropriate, italicized.
If the official name differs from the article name, then there should be a redirect from the official name to the article.
It may be useful, though is by no means required, to mention the difference between the official name and the common name. It is rarely appropriate to address this in the lead section; instead, it is often sensible to address this in an etymology section.

Disputed, previous or historic official names should also be represented as redirects, and similarly introduced in the article introduction unless there are many of them, or they are relatively obscure, in which case:

The alternative name should be mentioned early (normally in the first sentence) in an appropriate section of the article.
The redirect should point to this section.

All redirects from official names should be tagged with the {{R from official name}} template, which will automatically put it into the appropriate rcat.