Talk:St. Marys, Ohio

City Name Discrepancy

This article's name is "St. Marys, Ohio" and there is a redirect from "Saint Marys, Ohio" to this article. However, the official US Board of Geographic Name is "City of Saint Marys". The word "Saint" is not abbreviated. It seems to me that the article "Saint Marys, Ohio" should have the contents of this article and this article should redirect to "Saint Marys, Ohio" rather than the other way around. --Houghtonap (talk) 23:11, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Houghtonap:: Since the city's official website uses "St." instead of "Saint", I'd say there's no need to change the name. I'd be surprised if "Saint" is spelled out in common usage, which is what Wikipedia goes by generally. Indyguy (talk) 23:40, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Indyguy:: The question is not whether their official website uses one form or another, but what wikipedia's policies are. If wikipedia's policy is to use the government's established name by its authorized naming body, then this article isn't labeled correctly, otherwise there isn't an issue. What is wikipedia policy for using authorized names for places established by the government's naming authority? Is there any guidance on wikipedia in this area?

@Houghtonap:: The policy for article titles is at Wikipedia:Article titles, and it indicates, as I mentioned above, that the commonly-used name is generally to be used. Also, while the full legal name of many municipalities may include the phrase "City of" or "Town of", none of the Wikipedia articles on cities that I'm aware of use such a phrase in the title except for a page that is a redirect to the actual article. It would certainly be permissible to add a redirect with the title "City of Saint Marys". Indyguy (talk) 17:36, 31 December 2020 (UTC)