MarioWiki:Naming

With the multitude of subjects and popularity of the Mario series, it can sometimes be difficult to find the right way to name an article. Generally, the best source for naming will come from the game itself, but when subjects are not named within the actual game or the subject doesn't appear in video games at all, you may need to turn to secondary sources for an official name.

Naming an article
There are several steps to follow when naming an article:


 * The Super Mario Wiki is an English language wiki, so the name of an article should correspond to the most commonly used English name of the subject, which, given our user and visitor demographics, means the North American name. For example, the North American title of "Mario Strikers Charged" takes precedence over the PAL region's "Mario Strikers Charged Football" title.
 * If a subject isn't released in North America, but is released in another English-speaking region (i.e. Europe or Australia), the name they provide should be used for the article. If there is a conflict of which source to use, the region where the game was released first will have priority (i.e. the first international English name will be used).
 * If there is no official English name, then the first international name from a non-English region is used. For example, the bull-like boss from Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 does not have an official English name. However, the official German and Japanese names are known as "Beefne" and "Bīfun" respectively. As the Japanese release came before the German release, the Japanese name "Bīfun" gets the article title. However, if an official English name is found, then it becomes the article's title.
 * If a subject's name has changed over time, the more commonly used modern name should be used as the title, rather than the historic name. For example, Princess Peach's original English name was "Princess Toadstool", however, she is usually called "Princess Peach" in recent games, so the article's title is "Princess Peach".
 * If there is no official name in any language, then a conjectural title is developed if the subject is notable enough for an article. For example, the unnamed mayor of Fahr Outpost in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has been given the conjectural yet straightforward name "Fahr Outpost mayor", as he plays a role in the game's story, unlike most NPCs, which are not granted conjecturally named articles.
 * When naming an article, do not use game abbreviations. (e.g. use Hammer Bro (Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time) as opposed to ).
 * Note that this does not apply to Mario Kart console abbreviation article identifiers. See the shared titles section for more details.

Acceptable sources for naming
This is a list of acceptable sources when it comes to naming an article. If a source is not present, keep moving down the list until you have found the right way to name the article, and only create a conjectural title as a last resort.


 * 1) Name provided in-game or in the enclosed instruction manual – Ideally, the subject is named in the game itself, but whatever instruction material is enclosed with the game is also considered a primary naming source. If there is inconsistency between the manual and the game itself regarding a name, the game's version takes precedence.
 * 2) Name from a Nintendo Player's Guide or a Prima Games guide from Super Mario Galaxy-onward – A name from a Nintendo Player's Guide (also commonly known as a Nintendo Power guidebook) is an acceptable alternative. For games released after 2007, this source can no longer be used since this source is currently discontinued. Super Paper Mario is the last game in the Mario series to be covered by Nintendo Power. After Nintendo Power's sales to Future Publishing in 2007, Nintendo of America signed an exclusive agreement with publisher Prima Games for the rights to official English Nintendo strategy guides. As such, Prima guides released starting with Super Mario Galaxy are considered to occupy the same tier of officiality as Nintendo Power.
 * 3) Name from a pre-Super Mario Galaxy Prima Games Strategy Guide or any other third-party guide – A name from an officially-licensed Prima Games Strategy Guide (when they were published concurrently with Nintendo Power) is also an acceptable alternative, though in case of contradictions, the Nintendo Power name takes priority. This also applies to other official third-party guides by companies such as Bradygames. For Japanese names, guides published by Shogakukan (Nintendo's official guidebook licensee) take priority over other publications.
 * 4) Name used in officially licensed media – A name from any officially Nintendo-licensed non-video game media source. This includes cartoons, movies, magazines, comics and web content. Like games, North American media names get priority, followed by the first international English name and finally, the first non-English source.
 * 5) Development name – Any name used during the development of a video game or other Nintendo-licensed media source. This type of name usually comes from unused data, developer interviews or development documents.

Please note that regardless of the source, the official North American name takes priority, followed by the first international English name if no North American name is available, and finally the first international non-English name if no English name is known. For example, if a subject is given a name in-game in the Japanese version only, and not in the English localization of the game, but an English strategy guide names it, that English name is used, rather than the Japanese.

Please also note that general and lengthy descriptions of a subject that are clearly not intended as the subject's name are not suitable sources for the article's title. For example, while straightforward titles like "giant spike block" are fine, if the object is described as a "large block with spikes" or "the block with spikes on them", that should not be the name of the article.

English and non-English sources
English regions on the Super Mario Wiki are defined as regions where the games are officially released in the English language, and commonly includes the American, European, and Australian regions. Non-English sources on the Super Mario Wiki are defined as regions where games are not officially released in the English language (but which are released in one or more other languages). English sources generally have priority over non-English sources, with non-English titles only being used when no official English name is available. The region where the game was released first provides the name, meaning Japanese is often used for the title.

Japanese
Rather than using the actual Japanese characters, we use, such as Itsunomanika Heihō (for 「いつのまにかヘイホー」) or Unibō (for 「ウニボー」). However, if a Japanese word is itself a transliteration of an English word, simply use the original English word. Similarly, names that were transcribed slightly differently from the proper romanization when the games were translated from Japanese to English should use those official transcriptions (i.e. "Yosshī"/"Yossy" and "Kuppa" should be written as "Yoshi" and "Koopa", respectively). Therefore, 「ヨッシーのクッキー クルッポンオーブンでクッキー」 is given the title Yoshi no Cookie: Kuruppon Oven de Cookie, even though the direct romanization is "Yosshī no Kukkī: Kuruppon Ōbun de Kukkī"; another example is 「スーパーマリオ　不思議のころころパーティ」, which is romanized as "Sūpā Mario Fushigi no Korokoro Pāti", but given the article name Super Mario Fushigi no Korokoro Party to reflect how users instinctively want to refer to the familiar words in the title. However, if the word is part of a compound, leave it as the original Japanese, as a partial translation would just look awkward, rather than instinctual; for example, Kaibādo (「カイバード」) is not changed to "Kaibird".

Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia
While citing the non-English Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedias is acceptable, citing the English version is not. The English version of the book uses old, likely outdated, and created names directly pulled from and/or specifically meant for the wiki. In most cases, we already have a different name sourced, so using the old name while referencing the book would just lead to us referencing ourselves.

Conjectural names
Any name from a source not covered above is considered unofficial and conjectural. Generally, conjecturally named subjects don't have articles because they are either not noteworthy enough to have an article or don't have much information to cover. However, subjects that are detailed and noteworthy enough to have articles still have to adhere to certain guidelines.

Conjectural names are usually decided upon by the users of MarioWiki or commonly used names by the Mario community. When deciding on a name, the name must be simple yet accurate. For example, the article Bat has a simple yet accurate title. A name like is not acceptable because it is not simple and has an inaccurate description.

A specific rule applies to the planets in Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel. The planets don't have official names, but conjectural names are given to them by our users to help identify each planet. However, there are some rules to name them: The name must be clear and straightforward, explaining in one word or two which planet is it talking about. Names must be professional. The first planet must always be named "Starting Planet". must be used to denote the names are not official. Official planet names, like Starshroom don't abide by these rules.

Name changes
In certain cases, names may be changed because the old name is replaced with a newer name. A popular example of this is how was changed to Blooper. In these cases, the newer name will replace the older one with certain exceptions. Exceptions include naming errors, translation errors, and use of aliases/nicknames. For example, if the Prima strategy guide incorrectly names Crowbers as Crows, Crowber will still be the article name. It is up to the users to find and determine what the naming errors, translation errors, and use of aliases/nicknames are. When mentioning subjects whose names have changed overtime, the newest name generally takes greater priority, except in the context of older media where they went by previous names, in which case those are used instead.

Capitalization
The words in the title must be capitalized the same way they are from the source, unless it is a proper noun. Proper nouns are capitalized no matter how it is in the source. The wiki software makes it so that the first letter of the title is capitalized regardless. Exceptions to the proper noun rule can be made if there is some special reason why the proper noun is uncapitalized. Also, words that aren't proper nouns in conjectural titles should not be capitalized (like Peach's frying pan).

Italics
Italics are used in main and gallery namespace page titles in the same way that they are used in text. This includes cases where parentheses are used in the article title, such as World 1-1 (New Super Mario Bros. 2). Adding italics can be accomplished using the template. To italicize the full title (such as for games), use:

For partial italics, use the desired title as a parameter:

Either line of code should be placed at the very top of the page without any blank or empty lines following it. It's not necessary to make this change to talk pages.

Shared titles
It is possible to come across a subject which shares the same title as another subject, in which case identifiers must be used to show which one of the same-named subjects is covered in each page. If there is one subject that is clearly more popular than the others, the popular subject will keep the original title while the others use identifiers. For example, the game gets the Luigi's Mansion name, whereas the building's article is Luigi's Mansion (place). If the subjects are equally likely to be linked to or searched for, both articles are given identifiers while the plain subject title is made into a disambiguation page (marked with ). For example, Super Mario is a disambiguation page linking to all the other uses of the title, such as Super Mario (series) and Super Mario (form). If there are more than two pages sharing the same name, a disambiguation page must be used, although it may be given a "(disambiguation)" qualifier if one of the articles has the plain title. For example, the article Bowser's Castle is about Bowser's home, whereas Bowser's Castle (disambiguation) also links to other uses of the name, such as the game board and baseball stadium. Game series articles always get a series identifier regardless of whether or not the title is shared, such as Mario Kart (series). When disambiguation pages are used, the articles should only link to them in when necessary, but if a disambiguation page is not used, the articles can merely link to the other same-named page.

Determining the identifier
If an identifier is needed, the text in parentheses is determined by:
 * 1) What type of thing it is (e.g. level, game, character, tennis court). For example, Dribble & Spitz (souvenir) is correct.
 * 2) *The identifier "course" is preferred to be used for Super Mario 64-type courses, whereas for something like a golf course, the more-specific "golf course" is used.
 * 3) **For Mario Kart courses, console abbreviations are used as the identifier whenever possible to match the retro course naming convention (e.g. Daisy Cruiser (GCN)).
 * 4) **Due to the Mario Kart 8/Deluxe multi-console situation, the identifier "MK8" is used until confirmation of anything else (e.g. Rainbow Road (MK8)).
 * 5) **Battle courses which share a name with a game console receive a normal "battle course" identifier (e.g. Nintendo DS (battle course)).
 * 6) *Location identifiers start out specific but may become more generalized before moving to scenario two. For example, Waluigi Pinball (court) uses the less-specific "court" rather than something like "basketball court" because multiple sports can be played there.
 * 7) *The identifier "character" is used when differentiating a character from non-character(s) which share the same name (e.g. Ninja (character)). If a character shares the same name as another character, the title of the game or series they appear in is used (e.g. Lily (Paper Mario)). If a character name is used more than once within the same game, a species or custom identifier is used (e.g. Slim (Pixl)).
 * 8) If the same type of thing shares the same name across multiple games, use each game title as the identifiers. For example, World 1-1 (New Super Mario Bros. 2) and World 1-1 (New Super Mario Bros. Wii) are both levels from different games. We cannot use "World 1-1 (level)" because we need to differentiate between games.
 * 9) *If the subject of the article appears in multiple games in one series, use the series name plus the word "series" instead of a game name as the identifier if the topic(s) of the other article(s) are from different series (e.g. Block Star (Mario Party series)).
 * 10) *If two different games share the same title but appear on different consoles and the identifier needs to distinguish between them, the game name and abbreviation for the console are used in this format: ({game name} for {console abbreviation}). For example, Beach Volleyball (Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games for 3DS). The console abbreviation is the same as those used by Mario Kart retro courses. Consoles such as the Wii and Wii U don't have abbreviations, and the console name is simply used.
 * 11) If the same type of thing shares the same name across multiple games and that name is also used for multiple things within one game, use the game title followed by the type of thing as the identifier. For example, Ghost (Wario Land II enemy). If this scenario occurs, then the other thing which shares the name in the same game should also include the game title (e.g. Ghost (Wario Land II boss)).
 * 12) If multiple subjects in a shared appearance are the same type of thing, a distinguishing feature that differs between them may be used instead. For example, Chap (green) and Chap (blue) are both characters in Super Paper Mario.

Technical restrictions
It is entirely possible for subjects to have titles that are restricted due to MediaWiki software limitations. For this reason, if an article has a title which is technically restricted, then the article should be located at another title that closely matches the correct title as much as possible, and  be used to correct title headers. For example, the first castle level in Super Mario World, "#1 Iggy's Castle", is instead located at 1 Iggy's Castle, as the " " symbol will redirect readers back to the Main Page.