Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars/Names

PLEASE include two or three edit history links about the lame edit war. It would be also useful to list the date the edit war was added.

Aeris vs. Aerith
The Final Fantasy VII character was introduced to English audiences in 1997 as Aeris, but her name changed to Aerith in later appearances. Was the first name a misspelling? A mistranslation from the original Japanese pronunciation? But that's how it was when it was first released in English so that makes it her official name. But the later appearances are official too right? But she was known and referred to as Aeris for years, so that makes it the common name. But she's been going by Aerith since 2002, so now that's her common name. Many edit wars, page moves, and lengthy discussions later, the page is at Aerith Gainsborough and when mentioning her first 1997 appearances, she is called Aeris. All other appearances are called Aerith. With every title in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII using Aerith, the warring and discussions seem to have ended. The lengthy discussions are archived at Talk:Aerith Gainsborough/Name debate archive (page size of the archive is 113kb).

Avengers (comics)
Should there be a separate page for New Avengers (comics)? Is the name of the team now the New Avengers or is it just a new Avengers? Is it a new comic entirely or just a continuation of the old one? Following a positive merge vote, a series of reverts occurs when an editor "merges" the two by simply pasting the merged information into the article, creating two articles in one. The slow nature of the revert war means that, technically, nobody violates WP:3RR, and requests for help from other admins go unheeded because, well, it's lame. After a series of exchanges on the talk page questioning people's command of English as well as their sanity, the issue appears to have been settled with the creation of New Avengers (comic book) (note the oh-so-subtle distinction) based on the WikiProject Comics guidelines.

C#
In the name of the programming language C#, is that # thing (octothorpe) after the C a number sign or the musical sharp symbol? What should the wrongname template say? Some argue that a Microsoft FAQ supports the sharp symbol, while others argue that the ECMA standard promotes the # symbol and that it has better browser support. Some propose using # as a superscript (C#), which few editors like. Editors repeatedly reverted between each other, some refusing to discuss the issue on the talk page. The issue was resolved with an e-mail exchange with Microsoft stating that in their view it's an octothorpe symbol representing the sharp symbol, similar to how "<=" represents the less than or equal symbol, and that thus Microsoft does not disagree with ECMA. Written "Netscape" but pronounced "Mozilla", eh?

Clover (creature)
The creature from the movie Cloverfield was never explicitly named in the movie, or was it? Is "Cloverfield" the name of the military casefile, or the monster, or both? Some reporter referred to the creature itself as "Cloverfield" so let's go with "Cloverfield (creature)" Wait, shouldn't we follow suit with Frankenstein and call it "The Cloverfield creature"? Or wait, maybe it should just be "Cloverfield creature", maybe it should be "Cloverfield (monster)"? No, we can't do that, it shows bias and isn't NPOV. Rumor has it that the production staff just called it "Clover", but that's just a nickname, it doesn't count, does it? No matter, we can't use that until we find a source confirming that they call it Clover....OK, now we have one. How's about we skirt all naming conventions and call it "The Monster/Clover (creature)" to make everyone happy. Nah, that's no good, back to "Clover (creature)". But wait, that's still not the true name of the creature, so we shouldn't use that. Followed by and interspersed with a cavalcade of "Alright how about we just compromise and set it back to ." It's extremely important that an article on a fictional topic which only narrowly escaped AfD be properly named. Rather amusingly, considering how much edit warring there was/is on the page, it's been awarded "Good Article" status!

Compact Disc
Compact Disc is a tradename, therefore is capitalised. But the logo says "Compact disc". And the term is now used as a generic term for compact disks or compact discs, depending whereabouts in the world they are. Everyone calls them CDs (or maybe CD's). So where to put the article? Passions have been raised on this compelling topic on the article's talk page sporadically since 2004, boiling over briefly in 2007 and 2009. Everyone calm down – relax, have a cup of coffee, and listen to your favourite... erm... shiny music circle.

Devils Lake (North Dakota)
Shockingly, there are multiple locations in the United States with the name "Devils Lake" with and without apostrophes. A very heated war broke out here regarding which one should be featured, whether a disambig page was needed, even over the usage of the apostrophe – eventually literally degenerating into "my lake is better than yours!" Solution: RENAME THE FREAKIN' LAKES!!!

Eagles (band)
Is it "Eagles" or "the Eagles" when speaking about this group? The band's name is "Eagles", yet all former and current band members talk about their tenure with "the Eagles" in published interviews and on the official website. From the very first sentences of the band's biographies on allmusic, Rolling Stone, and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we can see how the world outside WP writes about them. Despite these facts, every "tequila sunrise" there appears an odd and concerted effort to erase the... "the" from all instances in the article, (even spilling into a band member's article ), leading to awkward "bizarro-speak" that even the band members themselves would surely laugh at. Someone needs to tell Don Felder to change the title of his book, because apparently he was wrong.

Eris (dwarf planet)
Was Eris named after the Greek goddess Eris or the Greek and Discordian goddess Eris? Does it matter that the IAU and discoverer Michael E. Brown referenced only the Greek aspect, even though the referenced mythological event was identical with The Original Snub? Is mentioning Discordianism POV because it gives the religion undue weight? Edit war results in loss of good article status and temporary article locking. Hail Discordia! War finally resolved by not actually mentioning what type of goddess Eris is. See also: Pluto and Ceres (dwarf planet).

European Robin
A heated debate took place on whether English Robin was an alternate common name for the European Robin, often simply called Robin. One editor persisted     in adding this essential piece of information despite opposition, , until there was a concession of sorts... Or not. Or does persistence pay off? Maybe not. Is this the last word on the matter? Who knows... Can it suspend a coconut from its husk?

Flavor of Love
Should second-season winner "Deelishis" be credited as her birth name, Chandra Davis, or her stage name, London Charles? Months of IP additions and months of "IF YOU REVERT WITHOUT DISCUSSION, YOU'RE GONNA BE BLOCKED!" ensue. In the end, nobody got blocked and the dispute died down on its own, probably because both sides realized they were battling over a woman who willingly went on a reality television show to "fall in love with" Flavor Flav. Yeah, boyeeeeeee!

G4techTV Canada
Does the name of a Canadian TV channel, originally an offshoot of namesake American one, contain the word "Canada" in its official title, ergo it should be parenthesized in the title? It's a terribly important matter, as witnessed by an intense move war and circular discussion on the talk page.

Fossil fuel for reciprocating piston engines equipped with spark plugs
Should this substance be called 'gasoline' or 'petrol'? See the talk page for a debate about the total number of English speakers in the world (and whether Americans should be considered an important part of it); the relative utility of search engines, closely followed by the unleashing of various pie charts and tables; claims that UK-wikipedians are set to re-establish the British Empire by moving pages to British spellings, counter-claims that Americans who want "gasoline" are being their usual nationalistic/culturally-imperialistic selves; RFC nominations, page-move warring and deletion debates, failed attempts to achieve compromise via some truly freaky article names (far beyond the suggested "Gasoline (petrol)" and "Petrol (gasoline)") and even the creation of templates to separate the article into sections individually tailored for both Commonwealth and American English tastes. Gasoline has been settled on for now, in part because that was the article's title originally, but the fallout has yet to settle.  Finally, while not trying to pour fuel over the fire, it should be noted that in Arab countries (its birthplace, after all), and a lot of Europe, people call it "benzine".

Gender of God
Or is it 'Gender of god'? How about 'Gender of Gods', gotta remember those damn pagans. Or is that 'Gender of gods'? Is 'sex' more appropriate than 'gender'? Is god/God/gods/Gods appropriate at all? How about (d/D)ivine entit(ies/y)… or (s/S)upreme (b/B)eing(s)... or some mix of all the above? Meanwhile, this doesn't account for religions with no explicit sex (or is that explicit gender?). We haven't quite decided yet, but rest assured, whilst some silly people are trying in vain to reach consensus, those with the power are proving their point with reverts. There have even been threats of ArbCom.

Silent Hill: Hospitalized or Imprisoned
Alessa was captured, but just how captured do you have to be to be considered "captured"? That "forced medical attention" makes all the difference in the world, so why would we need the word "captured"? While playing the game, a user might get the idea that a character implies something, so does a subtle wink at the camera mean something entirely different; something that could affect the whole plot and our own pride, for going with sourced material? It mattered for some, obviously, as a massive edit war broke out about a few words here and there and the war would be still going on, had it not been for the fact that administrators did some shallow digging and discovered that the instigator of the edit war was a famed blocked user who has been discovered to create no fewer than 23 sockpuppet accounts.

'Heather' of Silent Hill 3
The protagonist from Konami's survival horror video game Silent Hill 3 is known to those who have played the game as 'Heather'. But what is her last name? Is it Morris after the actress who portrayed her? Is it Mason? Does anyone care? Many sources disagree. A 'my source is more valid than yours' edit war broke out in an unlikely place. It wasn't on the page for the character in question. Certainly not on the page for the game itself. It actually broke out on the Silent Hill 3 blurb on the series overview page and its talk page.

Halo 1, Halo 2, and Halo 3
Should there be disambiguation notices on the respective articles of the Halo video games to the band Nine Inch Nails's personal Halo numbers for their albums? Do the numbers' acceptance by Trent Reznor mean anything? Are the Halo numbers notable enough to be disambiguated? Are any people going to search for Halo 2 or 3, not expecting information about a video game? Is the form of the Halo number Halo 3 or halo_03 or HALO 3?

Thankfully it seems like that this debate did not flare up again with the release of Halo 4.

Hillary Clinton
Should it say Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton in the infobox? This long-running edit war since 6 June 2015 has led to two full protections, which at the same time led to the loss of an indefinite semi protection after one expired. This also led to a RFC which stopped the warring.

Interstate 75
Is the southern terminus of Interstate 75 located in Hialeah, Florida, or would it serve the typical Wikipedia reader better if the infobox said "near Miami, Florida", a better-known city with twice the population 10 mi away? A discussion followed by a straw vote indicated that the majority of the participants preferred the latter wording, but there was no consensus. The debate (and the edit war) settled down for a few months until someone associated with Miami Dade College, whose Hialeah Campus is, er, near Miami, rekindled the reversions with an insistence that the phrase should be cited with an online reference and that "near Miami" violates WP:NPOV. Since then, the dispute – mainly through edit comments – has spread to a question as to whether a cited "in Hialeah" should be trumped by an uncited "near Miami". The dispute has pitted students and faculty of MDC against a handful of Wikipedians who believe that a precedent should prevail. As the standoff persists, the rest of the world rolls by…until finally, it seems "in Hialeah, FL near Miami ", with cite! gets the nod.

Lady Jane Grey
Was she really a Queen of England? Should her page be at Jane of England or Lady Jane Grey? Should she be referred to as Her Majesty Queen Jane? Does her husband merit inclusion in The List of royal consorts of the United Kingdom? (Notice that, until recently, "Royal Consorts of the United Kingdom was a red link, unlike The weather in Liverpool.) Resulted in many cut-and-paste page moves, edit warring across multiple pages and flaming on those talk pages. Warriors did not come to their senses even when it was pointed out how long Jane herself had been dead, though mercifully none of them met the same fate as their subject by having their heads lopped off. Though that would reduce the chatter!

Libertarian Socialism
Various supporters of the US Libertarian party (founded in 1971) argue that they own the meaning of the word 'libertarian', that placing it next to 'socialism' is a contradiction in terms, and hence that libertarian socialism (described circa 1850) cannot possibly have existed. An edit war and request-for-deletion war ensues.

J. K. Rowling
Is her name pronounced like "rolling" or to rhyme with "howling"? Rowling is on record claiming she pronounces her name like "rolling". An irate editor argues that this is a "British" pronunciation and the "American" pronunciation of her name should also be noted. This is slightly ridiculous as she is English, and therefore of course will pronounce it in an English manner. Cue endless spats on talk pages over whose arguments are "more cogent", and multiple reversions. Issue finally resolved (sort of) by very, very, very obliquely implying that she pronounces her name "rolling", rather than stating that that is how her name is pronounced. Edit war was brief, but, astoundingly, other people have since logged on and made the same complaint. Perhaps it rhymes with "Trolling"? Then again, rhymes themselves are dangerously POV.

Nobel Prize in Economics
Should this article (and other articles and templates that mention this award) use the common name of the award, the official name, Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the even more official name, Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne, or perhaps a compromise name, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics? The ignoble debate has involved endless discussions, requested moves, revert wars, blocks, and strangely, two (N/n)obel Prizes.

Richard Kyanka
An unseemly brawl over whether the article should name him "Richard Kyanka" or "Richard Charles Kyanka". At least the anon editors insisting on the insertion of the middle name provided good verifiable sources.

Missing sun motif
Is it a collection of myths or a motif? Should "sun" be capitalized or not? What about "underworld"? Edit warring here over these and other weighty issues have involved four editors and most of the article's history.

The Pope's title
Is he the Supreme Pontiff or just the Bishop of Rome? Portal:Pope/Intro says the latter for a year and a half after its creation; then in December 2008 the reverts to "Supreme Pontiff" start, along with deletions of the "Roman" in "Roman Catholic Church", and continue in bursts from a number of different anons for several months until it's protected. Proof of lameness: a screenshot of the page's history is now the lead image at the edit warring page.

Richard Neustadt
Two months of edit war on whether the page should say "President Truman" or "President Harry S Truman" (plus the same with several other presidents).

Once Upon Ay Time In Mumbai Dobaara!
Should the name of this Bollywood gangster film be Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai Again, Once Upon a Time In Mumbaai Dobara, Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai Dobara, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai 2, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Again, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Dobaara!, Once Upon ay Time in Mumbaai Dobaara!, Once Upon Ay Time In Mumbai Dobaara!, Once Upon Ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara!, or Once Upon ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara!? Not even the filmmakers seem to know. This hasn't stopped Wikipedians from moving the page 14 times between May and August 2013.

Panthera pardus tulliana
Is this nearly extinct panther's subspecies "tulliana"? Or is it "saxicolor"? One editor apparently thinks the old name of "saxicolor" is the only valid one. Threats to "hack the page", sicc their "IT team" on it, and "continue the edit war forever" abound. Also refers to everyone who disagrees as "racist". Had 91 revisions to the article until semiprotected.



Pluto
For decades regarded as a planet, it became a dwarf planet (as defined by the IAU) in 2006. Shortly after, it was duly assigned a minor planet number of 134340. Much contention ensued at the talk page about whether the article should be at 134340 Pluto or whether the disgraced planet should retain its simpler name (or, for that matter, whether to consider it a planet or not).

Potrero Hills
The Potrero Hills are "a range of low hills on the western edge of Richmond, California". They're pretty unremarkable; there happens to be a Chevron oil refinery there. But is it the "Chevron Richmond refinery" or the "Chevron Richmond Refinery"? An on-and-off edit war over this detail roils for months. After an exasperated (if excitable) administrator goes to the length of fully protecting the page, the war spills over onto Potrero Hill, San Francisco, where it is now being "debated" whether the disambiguation tag at the top should say "For the Potrero Hills in Richmond, California, see Potrero Hills" or "For the bluffs in Richmond, California, see..." or "For the minor mountain range...".

Sega Genesis and Sega Mega Drive
Is Sega's 16-bit console the Genesis or the Mega Drive? Which one is the proper name for the article? Or should it be called the Sega Fourth Generation console? The article has been moved from one name to the other multiple times, there is an FAQ and a "Falsehoods in the FAQ" discussion on the issue, and the war has spilled over into Wikipedia talk:Article titles. The article currently sits at Sega Genesis, and reached featured article status in December 2013, so it looks like the debate is finally over .... at least until Megatron Mega Drive (which is obviously the correct article title), rises again...

Scotland
Is Scotland a Constituent country (linking to constituent country), or a Country within a country (linking to constituent country), or a Country (linking to constituent country), or Country (linking to country), or a Semi autonomous subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Semi autonomous constituent subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Semi autonomous subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Home Nation, or a Nation, or a Kingdom, or a Part, or a Province, or a Region, or a combination of any of the above, or none of the above?

There have also been similar edit wars on pages about England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Following in the fine tradition of truly Lame edit wars, the conflict has spilt over into unlikely places – for example, cities twinned with Scottish cities have had flag icons repeatedly switched between the Union Jack and that of Scotland, with collateral damage seen on Colin McRae and Chris Hoy (whose page during the 2008 Olympics saw both the Union Jack being removed/added from nationality and switching between being British and Scottish).

St Pancras vs. St Pancras International
What name should Wikipedia give to the article about the railway station in London from which direct international passenger trains depart? Should it be primarily given the historic, shorter, simpler and everyday "St Pancras" or the (mostly) official, longer, more formal and more descriptive "St Pancras International"? Should the UK convention of calling a railway station "X railway station" be overturned in favour of "X station"? For that matter, as "St" is an abbreviation, should it have a full stop (I'm not joking)? All rather lame as they all redirect to the article and the two most popular variations are bolded in the lead anyway. Multiple moves and a stupidly long, long, long  talk page court case (complete with "exhibit A" and various chums) ensued. As yet unresolved.

Star Trek (I/i)nto Darkness
Is it "Into" or "into"? A simple capitalized letter led to, as xkcd neatly summed up, "Forty thousand words of debate", before suggesting the "compromise" solution of "~*~ StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNeSs ~*~". And that's over three months before the film's opening. Starfleet representatives have neglected to comment.

State Routes
Should articles for U.S. state routes use the format "State Route xx" or "Route xx (State)" or something else (where xx is the route number)? There were numerous edit battles and huge debates over official terms versus common vernacular and over uniformity versus state individuality. Some advocated for the pipe tricked version while others preferred full string method of disambiguation. This skirmish raged on for about a full year between roadfans, members of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, regular editors, and administrators, resulting in a few probations and even a song. The debate was finally settled with a poll after three previous naming convention "conventions" (#1, #2, #3) failed to resolve the conflict. In the end, the "State Route xx" format prevailed by a small margin. All the state route articles in the United States have been grandfathered into this format. Apparently the fourth try's the charm! An account of the entire war and eventual peace agreement is found here.

Straight Outta Lynwood
For this CD by "Weird Al" Yankovic, a dispute about whether "outta" should be capitalized spawned lengthy threads on the admin noticeboard, as well as accusations of abuse, and page protection. Arguments focus on whether "Outta" is a preposition, whether it's relevant that it's not shorter than five letters, and whether the way the title is spelled on the actual CD is more important than our manual of style. Until a naming convention change, Straight Outta Lynwood may be SOL (or SoL).

Cornelius Vanderbilt
When a vandal struck and a good user reverted all but one of his/her edits, an edit war ensued over whether Cornelius was nicknamed "The Ass" or not. Another good user stopped the short edit war by adding a comment about the missed vandalism.

Tuatara
That odd little reptile from New Zealand, no wait, it's a diapsid, no it's a reptile, no it's a higher animal, reptile again, higher animal again, reptile once more, …an amniote (??) The drama unfolds… but the tuatara itself just doesn't care. Oh yes I do!

Her Late Majesty
Must a queen deceased for over a century still be styled here "Her Majesty", an epithet conventionally reserved for the current monarch? This weighty dispute (pale reflection of warring here), filling talk pages and edit histories, has spilled over into other British monarchs, other royals and titleholders, several countries having or having had a monarchy, claimants and other royal pretensions, and even hundreds of holders of the papacy, where popes centuries dead are endorsed as “His Holiness” here, losing and regaining the endorsement with blinks of eyes. Ongoing debates deal with the format of dates, and the used or unused, existing or non-existent surnames family names  house names  former fiefs (some inherited names, but very few are sure what they precisely are) of monarchs and relatively unfamiliar variants of those (as well as the putative name of the horse of her late majesty's husband's family), with most edits being extremely trivial. Involved parties vouch for only aiming at accuracy, and certainly some argumentation goes deeper than believed humanly possible. This even created an edit war over whether it could be mentioned here. A truce, seemingly imposed by a Royal intervention that dragged in innocent bystander Prince Michael of Kent, Scottish accents and snail slime, appears to be holding, though occasionally some new fallout is being generated.

“Local girl makes good”
Pet views on royalty again, mostly the same parties warring – but this time, aligned contrariwise. Could an American woman who made an ex-king her catch keep the title she was bestowed by the marriage … or is the “she stole our king” attitude a sufficient reason to revert her (posthumously) back to her second husband's surname, Wallis Simpson? See how contrary POVs enter the debate: persons who had wanted “majesties” and “highnesses” used in each minor royal's articles arguing to strip an American girl of her only nobility title, and chivalrous Americans fighting to the metaphorical death in defense of a countrywoman's entitlement. An interesting point has been whether it is fatal or not that she married her Duke after his abdication, and this relates to various and sundry Austrian, Russian, and Romanian monarchies lost, as well as to her sisters-in-law and also to Fergie (no, not that Fergie or the other Fergie).

Wii
Is this article about "Wii" or "Nintendo Wii"? If it's "Wii," should it be called just "Wii" or "the Wii"? Or maybe "Nintendo's Wii"? Does it rhyme with "We" or "Wee"? Should "Wee" link to urine? Is "Wee" slang or a euphemism for urine? Is it a British or International word for urine? Is it even worth mentioning in the article at all? (not to mention "wee" as a synonym for "small", or "diminutive") Just some of the hard-hitting issues that provoked in excess of 1500 edits in the space of two weeks – long before the console was even released, and shortly before a massive war breaks out over "non-official external links" that leads to a huge strawpoll to end the issue, and continuing debates over whether the official or unofficial names of the console (according to official Nintendo policy, the console is called the 'Wii', not 'Nintendo Wii') and its accessories (for example, the "Wii Remote" aka "Wii-mote" aka "Wiimote") are more commonly used and which ones should be mentioned in which articles.

William of Orange
Was this the name of one King of England and also of some totally obscure minor characters in the mists of history – or was it actually the name of two important and well-known Protestant Heads of State, etc? That became the object of a dispute over a redirect. This vital question divided a bunch of eminent readers of history and led to a revert war that alternated the redirect almost every hour. Casual viewers were holding their breath when coming to check what was the current position of that weathervane. As the name's usage in English-speaking cultures was perceived to be the determining factor, there were attempts to almost hand-count English-speakers in New Zealand, South Africa, etc. – all apparently using the hallowed name in a certain way. Extensive and in-depth arguments in several talk pages and usertalk pages included claims of original primary authorship of a redirect as well as accusations of nationalistic POV, filibustering and "using all the tricks in the box." This teaches us some things about disambiguation pages and potential problems surrounding even such tools. A formal poll resulted in votes 9–5 in favor of renaming the disambiguation page as simply William of Orange, and most fallout is being settled.

There was an animal that was also referred to as William of Orange, but fortunately it is a pigeon, an animal that generally symbolizes peace, so the edit war and participants did not harm this unlucky pigeon (and also the fact that it's the only non-human that is called William of Orange).

U.S. Post Office
Many post offices in the United States are known as "U.S. Post Office, Podunk Branch" – unless of course that should really be "United States" and not "U.S." Which one is better? More accurate? More respectful? (Respectful?) Resolving this involved an edit war that dragged in sources ranging from the National Park Service to the  U.S. United States Congress. Whoa nelly Nellie.

Bolzano-Bozen or Bozen-Bolzano
This city in North Italy has two official names, Bolzano and Bozen, which are used together on street signs and the like. Should the article be under Bolzano, Bozen, Bolzano-Bozen, Bolzano (Bozen), or Bozen-Bolzano? Surely one of these Italian-German German-Italian names is English usage; or should we try Botzen? Or Bolzano-Bozen-Bulsan-Bocen-Boceno-Bolzan-Bauzanum-Bocenas-Bulsaun-Bolzanu-Buzzanu? This has spread to several talk pages; highlights so far include the two separate move requests from Bozen-Bolzano to Bolzano-Bozen (or was it the other way around?).

Gdanzig / Dańsk
Danzig? Gdańsk? Gdanzig? Dańsk? Dgadnazńisgk? Gdanzsikg? Edit wars have been occurring for most of Wikipedia's history with regards to the exact name of this Polish German  Prussian  Eastern  Central  Northern European  Baltic city. The edit war is so notorious that it is mentioned in the April Fools 2006 "Wikipedia's first IRC chat" log. The edit war was detailed in a chapter of a book. Perhaps ironically, the city hosted Wikimania 2010.

Kyiv / Kiev
The capital of Ukraine had the (mis)fortune of its Russian name Kiev being internationally much more widely known than its native Ukrainian name Kyiv. The best efforts of the government of Ukraine to determine by legislation the name of its own capital in the English language led only to edit and revert wars in Wikipedia, as some editors refused to follow the government's decision, insisting that the best-known version should be used. Since it was unthinkable that any of the warring camps were wrong in their contentions, it must have been the NPOV policy that was faulty. In September 2020, everyone noticed that the rest of the world had already accepted Kyiv, and the article was moved despite much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Tsushima Basin
Is it important to know that Korea has been preparing to officially register the name "Ulleung Basin"? The ocean feature is known both under the Japanese name Tsushima basin and under the Korean name Ulleung basin. There is also lots of disagreement which name is the more commonly used name in English for a place that pretty much nobody knows. (Also see the related lame edit war for the Land making up Tsushima subprefecture below and the related edit war concerning the Liancourt Rocks above.)

University of Sydney
Does this university have a Latin name, Universitas Sidneiensis, and should it appear in the infobox? Is checking old book stamps in the university library's store rooms "original research" or even "research"? Is the evidence for the name from a primary source or a secondary source? The battle eventually fizzled when everyone stopped caring.

2006 FIFA World Cup
In Swiss Standard German, "ss" is used in place of the ligature "ß". So should the German name use "Fußball" or "Fussball"? Despite the fact that even the German version of the page wasn't consistent, many editors were convinced that they knew best, and the edit war still lives on. See also Voßstraße below.

Voßstraße
Edit war over which name to use: Voßstrasse, Vossstrasse, or even Voss strasse or Voss-strasse. The lengthy, unproductive discussions involve legibility, respect of original spelling, a wide variety of silly name callings, an ANI thread, a call to arms, two separate AfD debates, a short move war and Der Spiegel ranking it among the five most absurd Wikipedia debates. See also 2006 FIFA World Cup.