Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Naming

This is an essay on style. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more WikiProjects on how to format and present article content within their area of interest.

This information is not a formal Wikipedia policy or guideline, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community.

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WP:AVINAME

Naming conventions

In general, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists. In this case WikiProject members would be considered specialists.

Accidents

Refer also Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force#Accident article naming conventions

Title

An article should be named as "AIRLINE FLIGHT NUMBER", for example Air Florida Flight 90, or if there is no flight number, then "DATE LOCATION AIRLINE AIRCRAFT TYPE crash", for example 2007 Mogadishu TransAVIAexport Airlines Il-76 crash. The flight number in the article name should not include the IATA airline code or ICAO airline code (eg. "Air France Flight 447", not "Air France Flight AF447" or "Flight AF447"), even if it may be commonly used, although redirects should be created using titles that include those codes and titles using lowercase "flight" when "flight" isn't the first word of the title.

For example, the IATA code for Air France is AF and the ICAO code for Air France is AFR. Therefore, the following redirects were created for Air France Flight 447:

Lead sentence

Where an aviation incident article does not use a common name or descriptive name as a title, and instead begins with the opening sentence: Airline Flight XYZ...., it should go on to immediately describe the notability of the incident in as few as words as possible. For this reason, it is not necessary in the opening line to clarify that the flight number may still be in use, or where it is normally scheduled to fly - this is because the normal flight or flight number is not the subject of the article. For example:

Madeup Airline Flight 123 was a passenger flight from Somewhere to Somewhere Else, that on such and such a day, failed/crashed/blew up/was hijacked. Y
Madeup Airline Flight 123 is a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Somewhere to Somewhere Else. On such and such a day, the aircraft used on this flight failed/crashed/blew up/was hijacked. N

The flight name using the IATA airline code and ICAO airline code may be added after the article title with a footnote that explains those codes and any flight numbers through codeshare agreements. For example, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 begins:

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370)^[a] was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, to Beijing Capital International Airport in China.

^ MH is the IATA designator and MAS is the ICAO airline designator. The flight was also marketed as China Southern Airlines Flight 748 (CZ748/CSN748) through a codeshare, and has been commonly referred to as "MH370", "Flight 370" or "Flight MH370".

Aircraft

In general, aircraft articles are named by their manufacturer, then by name and/or designation number, for example Boeing 747, Supermarine Spitfire.

Articles should always be named as generally as possible, so an article should only be named after a subtype (e.g. Messerschmitt Bf 109G) if writing about that specific version of the aircraft. Usually this will mean that we already have a more general article about the aircraft, relevant to all subtypes. If no general article exists, it may be worthwhile expanding the article slightly so that it encompasses all variants of the aircraft.

For guidelines specific to variants of British military aircraft refer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/UK military aircraft designations.

Airlines

Articles are placed under the most common English version of their name, for example Malaysia Airlines, El Al.

Airports

Criteria

In general use the word airport (or airfield, aerodrome, airbase as appropriate) in the article name.
Try to avoid long and unwieldy names like Dakar-Yoff-Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport, this statement does not preclude the use of such names.
Try to use a name that is sourced from a government agency, or the airport operator. If you have multiple choices, use the name that is most commonly used and is precise so that a dab is not needed.

When creating airport articles, redirects should be created from any additional names that the airport may be known as. Check to see if other airports have the same name, which is quite common if you use a common name like Tri-Cities Airport or Tri-City Airport. Likewise only using the city/state/country name can also produce conflicts like San Jose Airport. Be aware that many airport articles do not yet exist so doing a search on Wikipedia for other airports with the same name can produce misleading results.

Biographies

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

If that name is with a middle name or an abbreviation, make the Wikipedia article name conform to that format.

Military and award winners are sometimes identified with titles; Heinrich Gontermann is Heinrich Ritter von Gontermann after being awarded the Military Order of Max Joseph. Use the most commonly cited name, and create redirects from the other variations.

[1] MH is the IATA designator and MAS is the ICAO airline designator. The flight was also marketed as China Southern Airlines Flight 748 (CZ748/CSN748) through a codeshare, and has been commonly referred to as "MH370", "Flight 370" or "Flight MH370".

[a]