Thisguideline documents an English Wikipedianaming convention. Editors should generally follow it, thoughexceptions may apply.Substantive edits to this pageshould reflect consensus.

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This page documents naming conventions on bothAncient andModern varieties ofGreek.

Themost commonEnglish form of an Ancient Greek name or term may fall into any of three groups:

1. Latinization. This is the traditional English way of representing most Greek names in English and is well-represented in the naming of Wikipedia articles:Jesus andUranus (not Iēsoûs or Ouranós),Alexander andByzantium (not Aléxandros or Byzántion),Plato andApollo (not Plátōn or Apóllōn),Socrates andAchilles (not Sōkratēs or Achilleús).
2. Furtheranglicization. Many traditional English forms are neither Greek nor Latin:Greece andEgypt (not Graecia or Aigyptos),Troy andAthens (not Troia or Athenai),Homer andHesiod (not Homerus or Hesiodos),Aristotle andConstantinople (not Aristoteles or Konstantinoupolis). Adjectives—including the language and ethnic names derived from them—and common nouns are typically Anglicized:Athenian democracy,demotic Greek, theCelts,Platonic dialogues,Aristoteleanism.
3. Closer transliteration from the Greek. From the 19th century, there has been an increasing tendency to transliterate names more directly. While "Herodotos" is still less common thanHerodotus, scholarly sources may preferTyrannion,Pamphile, orArignote in their Greek forms. This style is especially common with technical terms relating to Greece:agon,epinikion,strategos. [Note that such terms, if not yet common in English, may require themagic wordDISPLAYTITLE to italicize them.]

Articles on people, places, and technical terms from ancient Greece should provide the Greek form of their name in the lead sentence. The Greek text shouldnot be italicized orbolded. The language code for Ancient Greek isgrc. Generally speaking, the first appearance of Ancient Greek text in an article should be wrapped with the template{{langx|grc}}, which provides a link to the article onAncient Greek:

{{langx|grc|Φίλιππος Βʹ ὁ Μακεδών}}, {{transliteration|grc|Phílippos II ho Makedṓn}}

Ancient Greek:Φίλιππος Βʹ ὁ Μακεδών,Phílippos II ho Makedṓn

Subsequent appearances of Ancient Greek text should be wrapped with the{{lang}} template:

{{transliteration|grc|phílos}} ({{lang|grc|φίλος}})

phílos (φίλος)

For situations where "Ancient Greek" may seem misleading (e.g., late antiquity or in cases where the modern Greek form is unchanged),|label=[[Greek language|Greek]] may be used. This provides a link to the main article on theGreek language:

{{langx|grc|Σωκράτης|label=[[Greek language|Greek]]}}, {{transliteration|grc|Sōkrátēs}}

Greek:Σωκράτης,Sōkrátēs

Allappearances of Greek text must be given aromanization, rendering its content in Latin letters. This romanization should be italicized (which{{transliteration}} will do automatically) and should be tagged with the language codegrc:

{{langx|grc|Ὅμηρος}}, {{transliteration|grc|Hómēros}}

Ancient Greek:Ὅμηρος,Hómēros

Pronunciation details for the Ancient Greek should only be given in special cases. Pronunciation hints for the anglicized Greek name can be where the English pronunciation is less than straightforward or ambiguous, note for exampleScythians:

TheScythians orScyths [footnote:Scythians is pronounced/'sɪθɪən/ or/'sɪðɪən/.Scyths is pronounced/'sɪθs/); fromGreekΣκύθηςSkúthēs; noteScytho-/'saɪθəʊ/ in composition (OED).]

SeeRomanization of Greek for details on the transliteration of the Greek alphabet. Note thatISO 843 is intended for Modern Greek and not necessarily suitable for Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek is usually transliterated as follows:

There are certain rules for Latinized spellings used in English. These rules are outlined below. But note that actual English usage trumps any of these rules (e.g. "Athens", not *"Athenae" forἈθῆναιAthēnai).

Compared to the close transliteration discussed above, quantity is not indicated, that is, ω and ο both becomeo; ε and η both becomee. υ and κ are mostly rendered asy andc, respectively.

Other vowel clusters are unaffected (e.g. Thyestes for Θυεστής). Any vowel with a diaeresis in Greek can be given a diaeresis in English.

Endings are normally changed to the equivalent Latin forms. Conventional names often ignore regular endings, soPlutarch, for 'Plutarchus',Homer forHomerus;Herod for the Kings of Judea, butHerodes Atticus.

These deal only with nominative forms unless indicated.

Again, transliteration needs to be distinguished from anglicization. If there is a common anglicization of a Greek proper name, it should be used in an English language context. A transliteration of the actual Greek can be given inISO 843.

Otherwise, they follow the standard rules as follows, except when a different name is commonly used in English (e.g. "Athens", "Crete", "Corfu"). This transliteration system equals the one used by the United Nations.^[1]

Note: an accent on the first vowel, or a diaeresis on the second vowel, indicates that the two vowels are pronounced separately. Examples: Οινόη, Χαϊδάρι.

Modern Greek uses two diacritics: theacute accent (indicating stress) and thediaeresis (indicating that two consecutive vowels should not be combined). These are kept in all formal transliteration systems but the accent marks are frequently omitted in practice. For this reason, when transliterating from Greek, no diacritics should be used in Wikipedia article titles.

This is particularly relevant to place names. The pageWikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) should be consulted first.

If the article concerns a concept that is significant in the Hellenistic period or before (i.e. would merit its own article even if the modern concept did not), use the archaic spelling. If the article concerns a modern concept merely derived from an ancient word, use the modern version. If a modern word's meaning has no overlap with the ancient word from which it derives, create two articles, but consider including a disambiguation message at the top of each page.

The standards ELOT 743,ISO 843, UN and BGN/PCGN1996 are identical and introduce a system that supersedes BGN/PCGN1962. The new standard corresponds to the system devised by the Hellenic Organization for Standardization and approved for international use at the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in 1987.^[2] So, unless there is a reason for exception, this standard should be always used for geographical names.

• Wikipedia naming conventions