Wikipedia:Naming character articles

This is an explanatory essay about the Wikipedia:Article titles policy and the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction guideline.

This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community.

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There is no special guideline or criteria for titling an article about a fictional character (or a couple or group of such characters), e.g. from a television series, a book, a film, or any other medium.

Some clear principles do apply:

The general criteria in
WP:COMMONNAME
.
General style guidelines in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style do apply to fictional characters, e.g. handling of initials and hyphenated names.
The guidelines at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction apply to fictional characters, when applicable to article titles.
Guidelines intended only for real-world people do not apply to fictional characters. Two examples are
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies
.
Various topical guidelines that do address fictional characters may apply. Some of these include:
- Anime/Manga:
  Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Anime- and manga-related articles#Article names and disambiguation
- Comics: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics)#Character articles
- Film: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films)#Character articles
- TV: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Television#Naming conventions
- Video games: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (video games)#Characters
Some wikiprojects may also provide additional recommendations, but these are not formal guidelines. For example:
- Soap operas: Wikipedia:WikiProject Soap Operas#Character articles (See also the TV guideline, linked above.)

See also