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Article Titles in Wikipedia
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An article title is the large heading displayed above the article's content and the basis
for the article's page name and URL. The title indicates what the article is about and
distinguishes it from other articles.
The title may simply be the name (or a name) of the subject of the article, or it may be a
description of the topic. Because no two articles can have the same title, it is sometimes
necessary to add distinguishing information, often in the form of a description in
parentheses after the name. Generally, article titles are based on what the subject is
called in reliable sources. When this offers multiple possibilities, editors choose among
them by considering several principles: the ideal article title resembles titles for similar
articles, precisely identifies the subject, and is short, natural, distinguishable and
recognizable.
This page explains in detail the considerations, or naming conventions, on which
choices of article title are based. If necessary, an article's title can be changed by a
page move.
Deciding on an article title
Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's
subject. There is often more than one appropriate title for an article. In that case, editors
choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations that this page explains.
A good Wikipedia article title has the five following characteristics:
Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone
familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will
recognize.
Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that
editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually
conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and
distinguishes it from other subjects.
Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's
subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.
Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming
conventions on article titles, in the box above.
These should be seen as goals, not as rules. For most topics, there is a simple and
obvious title that meets these goals satisfactorily. If so, use it as a straightforward
choice. However, in some cases the choice is not so obvious. It may be necessary to
favor one or more of these goals over the others. This is done by consensus. For
instance, the recognizable, natural, and concise title United Kingdom is preferred over
the more precise title United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Treatment of alternative names
By the design of Wikipedia's software, an article can only have one title. When this title
is a name, significant alternative names for the topic should be mentioned in the article,
usually in the first sentence or paragraph. If there are at least three alternative names,
or there is something notable about the names themselves, a separate name section is
recommended. These may include alternative spellings, longer or shorter forms, historic
names, significant names in other languages, etc.
· Use sentence case
Titles are written in sentence case. The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized
by default; otherwise, words are not capitalized unless they would be so in running text.
When this is done, the title is simple to link to in other articles: Northwestern University
offers more graduate work than a typical liberal arts college. Note that the capitalization
of the initial letter is ignored in links. For initial lowercase letters, as in eBay, see the
technical restrictions page.
· Use the singular form
Article titles are generally singular in form, e.g. Horse, not Horses. Exceptions include
nouns that are always in a plural form in English (e.g. scissors or trousers) and the
names of classes of objects (e.g. Arabic numerals or Bantu languages).
· Avoid ambiguous abbreviations
Abbreviations and acronyms are often ambiguous and thus should be avoided unless
the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily
associated with the subject (e.g. NATO, laser, SCSI). It is also unnecessary to include
an acronym in addition to the name in a title. Acronyms may be used for parenthetical
disambiguation (e.g. Conservative Party (UK), Georgia (U.S. state)).
· Avoid definite and indefinite articles
Do not place definite or indefinite articles (the, a, and an) at the beginning of titles
unless they are part of a proper name (e.g. The Old Man and the Sea) or otherwise
change the meaning (e.g. The Crown). They are noise words that needlessly lengthen
article titles, and interfere with sorting and searching.
· Use nouns
Nouns and noun phrases are normally preferred over titles using other parts of speech;
such a title can be the subject of the first sentence. One major exception is for titles that
are quotations or titles of works: A rolling stone gathers no moss, or "Try to
Remember". Adjective and verb forms (e.g. elegant, integrate) should redirect to articles
titled with the corresponding noun (Elegance, Integration), although sometimes they are
disambiguation pages, like Organic and Talk. Sometimes the noun corresponding to a
verb is the gerund (-ing form), as in Swimming.
· Do not enclose titles in quotes
Article titles that are quotes (or song titles, etc.) are not enclosed in quotation marks
(e.g. To be, or not to be is the article title, whereas "To be, or not to be" is a redirect to
that article). An exception is made when the quotation marks are part of a name or title
(as in the TV episode Marge Simpson in: "Screaming Yellow Honkers" or the album
"Heroes" (David Bowie album)).
· Do not create subsidiary articles
Do not use titles suggesting that one article forms part of another: even if an article is
considered subsidiary to another (as where summary style is used), it should be named
independently. For example, an article on transport in Azerbaijan should not be given a
name like "Azerbaijan/Transport" or "Azerbaijan (transport)", use Transport in
Azerbaijan.
· Follow reliable sources for names of persons
When deciding whether to use middle names, or initials, follow the guidelines , which
means using the form most commonly used by reliable sources (e.g. John F. Kennedy,
J. P. Morgan, F. Scott Fitzgerald), with few if any exceptions.
· Special characters
There are technical restrictions on the use of certain characters in page titles. The
following characters cannot be used at all: # < > [ ] | { } _ There are restrictions on titles
containing colons, periods, and some other characters, which may be addressed
through Template:Correct title. Technically, all other Unicode characters can be used in
page titles. However, some characters should still be avoided or require special
treatment:
Characters not on a standard keyboard (use redirects): Sometimes the most
appropriate title contains diacritics (accent marks), dashes, or other letters and
characters not found on most English-language keyboards. This can make it difficult
to navigate to the article directly. In such cases, provide redirects from versions of
the title that use only standard keyboard characters.
Italics and other formatting
Italic formatting cannot be part of the actual (stored) title of a page; adding single
quotes to a page title will cause those quotes to become part of the URL, rather than
affecting its appearance. A title or part of it is made to appear in italics with the use of
the DISPLAYTITLE magic word or the {{Italic title}} template. In addition, certain
templates, including Template:Infobox book, Template:Infobox film, and
Template:Infobox album, by default italicize the titles of the pages they appear on; see
those template pages for documentation.
Other types of formatting (such as bold type and superscript) can technically be
achieved in the same way, but should generally not be used in Wikipedia article titles
(except for articles on mathematics). Quotation marks (such as around song titles)
would not require special techniques for display, but are nevertheless avoided in titles;
see Article title format above.
Titles containing "and"
It is generally best to list topics in alphabetical order, especially those involving different
countries or cultures, as in Canada–United States border. However, if there is an
obvious ordering, such as at Life and death, that ordering should be followed instead. If
one concept is more commonly encountered than the other, it may be listed first.
Alternative titles using reverse ordering (such as Relegation and promotion) should be
redirects.
Titles containing "and" are often red flags that the article has neutrality problems or is
engaging in original research: avoid the use of "and" in ways that appear biased. For
example, use Islamic terrorism, not "Islam and terrorism"; however, "Media's coupling of
Islam and terrorism" may be acceptable. Avoid the use of "and" to combine concepts
that are not commonly combined in reliable sources.
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