Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools)/Archive 7

This guideline is an attempt to clarify the naming conventions for school articles. This guideline should be used taking account of local conventions and community consensus, to decide upon a title that fully disambiguates, without becoming overlong. Generally, school article titles should reflect what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a minimum of ambiguity.

If an article has been named inappropriately, it can be renamed by moving the article to a more appropriate title. See Help:Moving a page and Requested moves for more on renaming pages. Editors are often passionate about the naming of their particular schools and it is generally wise to discuss a proposed name change on the talk page first. This can be done with the WPSchools "move" parameter or by a simple comment.

Choosing a name
School article titles should use the full official name of the school as provided by the school itself, unless the most common name for the school is significantly more well known than the official name.

Articles on schools preferably don't start with a definite article (a similar convention applies to universities). See When definite and indefinite articles should be avoided. Should it be necessary to start the name of a school article with a definite article, the definite article should be removed when placing the article in a category. This can be accomplished with DEFAULTSORT so for "The School (location)" article, one should add " " above the category list at the bottom of the page.

Titles containing an abbreviation like St. (Saint) sort properly in categories by expanding the abbreviation - " " for example.

Disambiguation
If the school name is not unique, the location of each school should be added as a qualifier in parentheses, and a disambiguation page should be created at  School Name . If the  School Name  title is already taken (if for example a well known school with lots of linking alumni has an overwhelming case for not having a disambiguated title) then the disambiguation page should be created at  School Name (disambiguation)  (local style guidelines permitting). The disambiguation page should always include full location details including the country in which the school is situated to avoid any confusion.

Redirects
If location parameters have been used for disambiguation purposes the appropriate redirect pages should be created without the added location parameters. If a school article has been moved from another title that included some sort of location parameter to  School Name (new parameter)  to fit these guidelines, there is no need to delete the redirects, unless there is a risk of confusion.

Hatnotes
If there are two articles with similar but unique names they should be linked together by means of hatnotes, which are short notes placed at the top of the page before the start of the primary topic. For example, Dartford Grammar School and Dartford Grammar School for Girls both have very similar names, and hatnotes have been used to aid navigation.

Country by country examples
This guideline is intended to ensure that naming conventions for schools are consistent within each country. Consensus has been reached on the disambiguation styles for the following countries:

Australia
School (Town or City)
 * Municipality is the name of the town or city the school is nearest.
 * For example, Richmond High School (Richmond, New South Wales).

Canada
School (Municipality, Province)
 * For Canadian territories, the name of the territory replaces 'province' and the word 'territory' should be omitted.
 * For example, Queen Elizabeth High School (Halifax, Nova Scotia), or South Park Elementary School (Victoria, British Columbia).
 * Additional information, including dealing with schools that have French-language names, can be found at WikiProject Education in Canada.

United Kingdom and Ireland
School (location)
 * The location would normally be the village, town, or London Borough.
 * For example, Forest School (Winnersh), Forest School (Horsham), or Forest School (Walthamstow).

United States
School (Municipality, State)
 * For example, Austin Middle School (Irving, Texas), or West Valley High School (Cottonwood, California).