Arisential

"Turkey" vs. "Türkiye"

Hi! I saw you used the name "Türkiye" as the name of the country generally known in English as "Turkey" in your recent edit.

Q: Why don't you use the name Türkiye, the correct name for this country?

A: Because the English-language Wikipedia has a WP:COMMONNAME policy. We use names for countries and places that are the names commonly used for them in English, regardless of what official organizations use. Technically, this kind of name is known as an exonym. For example, we use the name Germany, instead of the native endonym Deutschland, and we use the name Japan instead of the native name 日本.

Q: But the Turkish government, U.S. State Department, and United Nations all use "Türkiye", so it must be correct.

A: Indeed they do. But WP:COMMONNAME is not authority-based, but usage-based.

Notice that this does not apply when we are quoting a literal name in Turkish; for example, the newspaper is called Türkiye, not Turkey. To do that would be hypercorrection, and we don't do that. Nor do we mangle the name into English in direct quotations, including titles of documents, nor in URLs. But it does apply for all uses in Wikipedia's own voice in the English language, including article titles (so the capital is Ankara, Turkey, not "Ankara, Türkiye")

If or when that general English-language usage changes (as has happened in the past with place names such as Mumbai and Beijing), the same WP:COMMONNAME policy implies that the English-language Wikipedia will necessarily also follow suit. So far, that hasn't happened.

This has been discussed many times, with the same result every time because of the common name policy. If you'd like to discuss this further, please take it up at Talk:Turkey. However, for the reasons given above, there is currently a moratorium on further requests for name changes to the Turkey article until 1 December 2023. — The Anome (talk) 13:25, 3 December 2023 (UTC)