Policy:Naming Conventions

It was established by the staff and is considered a standard that everyone should follow. Please make use of talk pages to propose changes to this policy.

This is a breakdown of rules on how to appropriately name created articles. Most commonly, an article should be created by the author of the canonical information. The name should be easily recognizable for English speakers, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity.

## General Rules

### Be precise when possible

When naming an article, please abide by the following

1. Use the canonical name whenever possible.
	* If a subject has more then one canonical name, use the most formal and accurate version of that name.
2. Whenever alternate names are used, use the name under which the subject appears at the most recent time period, or for characters, at the moment of that characters death.
	* Whenever two or more names are used by a character simultaneously (adopted names included), use the most commonly known of those names. Exceptions to this may apply to characters who prominently identify as a certain name despite their public persona.
3. If no-canonical name exists, one should be created for the subject. Nicknames should not be used as the name of an article, and should not be included in the name of the article. If you are not the author of the canon article in question, the author should be contacted in regards to what they wish the proper name of the article to be called.

### Lowercase second and subsequent words

Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun or is otherwise always capitalized. Due to the technical limitations inherent to the MediaWiki software, the first letter in an article title always needs to be a capital letter. Ordinarily, this isn't a problem, but it poses an issue when a proper noun's first letter is lowercase. The first letter of an internal wikilink need not be capitalized and will direct the reader to the same page. Also, the magic word `{{DISPLAYTITLE:*name*}}` can be used to display the article's name with the first letter in lowercase.

### Singular nouns

Create in-universe article titles using singular nouns unless a subject is always presented in a plural form. Note that category names follow different pluralization conventions.

### Avoid the definite and the indefinite article at the start of the page name

Except in titles of works or in official names, avoid the definite ("the") and indefinite ("a"/"an") articles at the beginning of an article title. This applies even if the article subject is usually preceded by the definite article "the" in speech or writing. However, the following exception may apply:

* If two article subjects, one of which covers a general term and another a specific instance, are competing for the same article title and are usually preceded by the definite article, then "the" *is* to be used at the beginning of the specific instance's article title in order to avoid a parenthetical descriptor.
	+ The preceding exception does not apply for ships and vehicles. Ships and vehicles may only include the definite article at the beginning of the article title if "the" is part of the subject's formal name.

### Prefer spelled-out phrases to abbreviations

Use the full name of the subject instead of its abbreviation.

### Use English words

Name articles in English and place the native in-universe transliteration at the beginning of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in canon than the English form (for example with a different canonical language then English).

### Be careful with special characters

Some special characters either cannot be used or can but cause problems. For example, you should not use a piping character (|), an asterisk (\*), an ampersand (&), a plus sign (+), a number sign (#), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]) in a name.

### Disambiguation

Articles with identical competing titles should typically be disambiguated via a parenthetical descriptor, and the central title should then become a disambiguation page. The following exceptions apply:

1. Major subjects shall be granted precedence over lesser-known subjects, and disambiguation pages may be created from there as necessary.
2. Article subjects with canonical titles shall be granted precedence over conjectural titles.
3. Genuinely-named characters shall be granted precedence over impostors or other aliases.
4. Precedence shall be granted to articles on species, locations, characters, and ships in that order, pursuant to this section's clause regarding major subjects taking precedence overall. Examples:
	* **Species**: Zafi'an, and Zafi'an (city)
	* **Location**: Gabriola, Gabriola (Maji'ill), and Gabriola (Ballistae-class frigate)
	* **Character**: Queen Amerelda and *Queen Amerelda (Scarab-class galleon)*
	* Note the following exceptions:
		+ If a location is substantially more significant than its species namesake, precedence shall be granted to the location and not the species.
		+ If a given subject is explicitly identified as having inspired the name of another subject, the original namesake shall be granted precedence, although this exception may be waived if the inspired subject is a major topic.
5. Precedence shall be granted to subjects that can be considered original namesakes for other subjects with competing titles (example: Sword and all other subjects named Sword), although this exception may be waived if the namesake's title competes with a major subject.

Article titles shall avoid the parenthetical descriptor unless there is another article subject with an identical competing title.

## Specific rules

### Animals and other organisms

Refer to all non-sentient creatures of *Legacy of Chaos* as **creatures** and not animals.

### Characters

#### Clan names

Use a characters full clan name when provided. If a character does not have a clan name, omit the clan name from the article title.

#### Foreign language names

For characters who have complex names in their native language, use their basic language name instead of their full heritage name.

### Languages

If a language has been given an official name, then that name should be used as the article's title, with the parenthetical "(language)" if there is a naming conflict. If a language has not been given an official name, one should be decided upon by the language's author.

### Lists

The list of Xs should be titled as **list of Xs**, rather than **Xs, famous Xs, listing of important Xs, list of noted Xs, list of all Xs,** etc. Before ever creating a list, consider making a category instead: categories are easier to maintain and lists are generally discouraged by the Legacy of Chaos community.

### Ships

To disambiguate individual ships, add the ship class in parentheses to the vessel's name.

* The parenthetical descriptor need only specify the abbreviated ship class (example: *Peacebringer (Armada-class)* unless the abbreviated class name applies to multiple ship classes, in which case the full ship class name shall be specified (example: *Queen Amerelda (Scarab-class galleon)*, because "Scarab-class" may refer to several different ship classes).
* If a ship class does not include "-class" as part of its name, specify the full class name in parentheses.

### Titles

Titles are generally **not** considered to be part of a character's name. Notable exceptions are those of which a character can be reasonably expected to only be addressed by. This includes but is not limited to: King, Queen, Emperor, Warchief, and iterations of the 'High-X' title in which only one exists at any given time.

### Years and plain numbers

For in universe dates, omit the comma for years 1000-9999, followed by the appropriate calendar era abbreviation after the number. Do include the comma for all years above 10,000+.