Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sportspeople)

This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

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This page in a nutshell: Sportsperson articles should follow the general naming conventions for articles on people, but there are some special points to consider in disambiguation. The recommendations within also apply to non-sport competitive gaming.

As with any other biographical article, the name of an article about a sportsperson (or other type of notable gamester, such as a professional poker or chess player) should be the most commonly used name of the person. That is, it should be the name that is most generally recognizable. Normally this is simply the first and last name of the person (e.g. Peyton Manning), but may also be a nickname if that is how the person is best known professionally (e.g. Sonny Homer). If the person is best known with a middle name or abbreviation, then the title should reflect that (e.g. J. C. Watts, Darrell K. Smith, Arland Bruce III). Disambiguation of sportsperson article titles should follow the general conventions as much as possible, just like any other Wikipedia article.