Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (companies)/poll

There is, as far as I can tell, no fixed standard for naming companies on wikipedia. Looking over a few of these lists will show how inconsistent the naming has been


 * NASDAQ-100
 * List of S&P 500 companies
 * Companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange
 * Fortune 500

Just a few of the problems
 * Inc. vs Incorporated
 * Co. vs Company
 * Corp. vs Corporation
 * Company Name vs. Company Name Incorporated

There does not also appear to be any preference for how the companies are named, though there has been some debate over plc Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive4. I would like to establish some consistency and do not strongly feel either way. Your comments and suggestions for the poll are appreciated. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 18:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a useful policy to debate. There have indeed been many strong feelings expressed in the past, and having a policy sometimes helps to smooth the path to a resolution.

One suggestion I have is that the debate should not just focus on U.S./UK usages, but should also consider usages in the naming of companies from all other regions as well. I recently addressed some issues about M. M. Warburg & CO and learnt a bit about the usage of Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien which I would rather not have to type in each time - much preferring the abreviation of KGaA. User:Noisy | Talk 18:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * There is an impressive list of types of corporations across the world. I think a rule of thumb might be if the name of the legal status is over 13 characters long (incorporated is 12 and is still spelled out in the title of several companies), then by default it should be abbreviated. Anything less (corporation = 11, limited = 7, company = 7, etc) would be decided by the vote. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 20:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

1. Business legal status
Whatever choice we make about using or not using the legal status, we will need a redirect from the the other. This redirect should be strongly encouraged as something the inital article author needs to set up. Vegaswikian 18:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Concur; redirects need to be created for other naming options, whatever the decision about the title of the article is. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 20:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this is a useful and needed debate. I know where I'm voting when it opens. I salute the proposer for working to settle this issue. PedanticallySpeaking 18:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Should the company name as listed on a stock exchange be considered as one of the naming options. This could be a more global standard since there are exchanges in most countries.  It would not help for private companies, but still could be an option.  Vegaswikian 23:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

2. Abbreviation of business legal status
We need to be careful here. One of the companies I worked for was legally Corp. and not Corporation. So saying that we need to use the full name (corporation) would be totally incorrect in that case for the company name. Vegaswikian 19:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed, there are special cases and so the naming convention would serve as a guideline, not a be all and end all. There should be some consistency and flexibility. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 19:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * These cases are not unusual at all. In fact, the world's largest company is formally named "Wal-Mart Stores, Inc." . Also, if we decide not to expand "Inc.", would we expand e.g., Freightliner LLC into Freightliner Limited Liability Company, or maybe Freightliner, Limited Liability Company? I think if we are going to use the legal name of the company as found in its charter, it should be an exact match, not one with abbreviations expanded. —Michael Shields 14:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I am actually a bit lost about the difference between "Use company literature, but abbreviate where ambiguous" and "Use company literature, but use full name where ambiguous". Both appear to boil down to one, namely, "Use company literature, but use full name/abbreviated form/other disambiguators to disambiguate". We simply can't legislate whether the company literature would default to either full name or abberviated form in a poll. The same question applies to the question "Abbreviation of legal status in the title sentence". --Pkchan 13:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
 * This option was to help address companies that specifically use the abbreviated version of Co. Inc, etc in legal title. So for example - the legal name of the company is Generic Co. Limited. Under abbreviate where ambiguous the title would be  Generic Co. Ltd. because the Limited is ambiguous - it is often referred to as both Limited and Ltd. in different media. Under "use full status where ambiguous" the title would be Generic Co. Limited, again because the "Co." was stated specifically as abbreviated in it's legal status.  I hope that helps, if not, I'm happy to help clarify. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 18:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Either I still don't understand the difference between the two, or I hold a view different from both options. In my opinion both the article name and the title sentence should describe, verbatim and in full, the company name as it appears on the incorporation deed/certificate.  Therefore, in the given example, if "Generic Co. Limited" is the company's registered name, then "Generic Co. Limited" should be used in both article name and title sentence.  Similarly, if its registered name is "Generic Company Ltd.", it should be given full respect as well and used verbatim in both article name and title sentence.  There doesn't appear to me any place for disambiguation.  --Pkchan 14:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Based on what you suggested your vote would be for Always include legal status in option 1 and Use company literature, but use full name where ambiguous in option 2 and 3. Correct me if I'm wrong but it you basically want the full legal name and only use abbreviations if the company does so itself.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 05:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification! --Pkchan 15:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Special characters in the title
The only item in the poll that seems to address this (JPMorgan Chase & Co.) seems to treat them as abbreviations. For many companies and busineses that is not the case. A good example is the Waldorf=Astoria which is actually titled Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. I think that we need to consider accepting certain of these characters and still not get into a probelm with having to use the really cute things like using a star in place of an  ' . Vegaswikian 19:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if this shouldn't be addressed by a larger naming convention standard, rather than something specific to companies. In principle I agree with you though, article titles should reflect the company name unless another name is in much wider use. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 19:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Changes to the draft poll
Just to be clear, I do not "own" this poll. It is free to be edited, though major changes should be discussed before implementing them. In particular, I had trouble coming up with specific Pro and Cons for each item. Feel free to add or change as needed. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 20:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Using the official name
Why would we not use the official name when it is known? (including the business legal status, and capitalising it the way the business wants it capitalised) That would seem to handle the Co. vs. Corp. vs. Corporation question neatly, use what the company used? ++Lar: t/c 04:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, how many people actually know that when they talk about the company? Doing this would mean that most references to the article would be via a redirect.  Vegaswikian 05:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yep. I'm not that down on redirects though. I wouldn't hold off creating the article because the exact right name isn't known, that's what moves are for... ++Lar: t/c 06:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Changing names
Thanks for starting this poll. I would like to add a a concern that should be addressed by the standards - What happens when a company changes its name, merges with another company, or gets acquired? A great example is AT&T, which broke apart in the 80's into Lots of Bells, Lucent, and others, then got aquired by SBC, and is now called AT&T again. What is the way to handle this? Ancawonka 17:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * This poll would not deal with that unfortunately.  This only deals with whether the article is titled AT&T Inc. or AT&T or Cingular Wireless vs. Cingular Wireless LLC.  The company of the name is what the company decides it to be whether it be AT&T or SBC or CBS or Viacom.  Hope that clears it up. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 18:03, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok. Do you know if there is a discussion around how to deal with companies as they change?  This is of particular interest to me right now as I am working (for work) on a scheme to deal with this very issue.  I can put whatever findings I have in that discussion area. (I'm pretty new to being a Wikipedia writer, so I don't know my way around it quite yet).  Anca 19:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * What issue/company are you working with? I might be able to give you more specific advice. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 19:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Abbreviations in title sentence of the article
Is there strong feeling either way (i.e. adding another poll option) about the use of abbreviations in the title sentence of an article.

For example


 * Generic Company Inc. is the largest provider of widgets in the world
 * Generic Company Incorporated is the largest provider of widgets in the world
 * Generic Competitor and Co. Ltd. is second largest provider of widgets in the world
 * Generic Competitor and Company Limited is the second largest provider of widgets in the world

In this case I would prefer the full name spelled out if each of the words is less than 13 characters (Incorporated is 12 letters). --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 18:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the full name should be spelt out regardless of length of the words, in the title sentence, whether or not the article uses the full name title as the main one. (Is there something special about 13 chars I am not aware of that suggests words above it should be abbreviated? thanks!)  So perhaps a poll is a good idea? (I took the liberty of correcting the spelling of incorporated in example 2, above) ++Lar: t/c 18:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well some company's legal status is Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien or Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung or Coöperatieve Vennootschap met Onbeperkte Aansprakelijkheid or Société d'investissement à capital variable see (Types of corporations). These should not have to be spelled out as the acronym is commonly used and understood.  I suggested 13 letters as a cutoff because "incorporated" is as far as I can tell, the longest word that is still spelled out, if only occasionally.  Anything above abbreviate, anything below spell out.  Thanks for fixing my spelling btw.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 18:55, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Ha. Say 'Coöperatieve Vennootschap met Onbeperkte Aansprakelijkheid' three times fast! Ya I see your point, 12 is not a "magic" number, it's just the length of the longest word that doesn't always get abbreviated (GmbH is one you see a lot for Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung and I've never seen it spelt out. So ya. Or just use common sense rather than a hard/fast number? (there, I just completely contradicted what I said above) ++Lar: t/c 19:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I too feel that the full name needs to be listed in the article. If there is a redirect, I think policy is to bold the name that the redirect is from.  However this may not be workable given the number of abbreviations that can be used.  Another option to consider is to include the full name in the company's infobox.  Gets it out of the text that people read, but still keeps it in the article.  Vegaswikian 21:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)