Talk:John Mushmouth Johnson
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 | John Mushmouth Johnson is currently an Economics and business good article nominee. Nominated by Babin Mew (talk) at 14:01, 17 January 2026 (UTC) This article is ready to be reviewed in accordance with the good article criteria. Any editor who has not nominated or contributed significantly to this article may review the article and decide if it should be listed as a good article. To start the review process, click start review and then save the page. See the instructions. |
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Title of a biography
@Babin Mew: There is a naming convention for biographies that means Most biographical articles have titles in the form <First name> <Last name>. While a biography can have a nickname in the title, it is not enclosed in quotation marks. Quotation marks in tiles should be avoided, if at all possible. The Manual of Style also explains how to quote a nickname that is bolded in the article text. The article about Ozzy Osbourne illustrates how a nickname should be treated in a biography.
In this case, I realise that John Johnson is a very common name, and some form of title disambiguation is also needed in this situation. Natural disambiguation is the preferred method and since this person's middle initial appears to be "V.", according to his Find-A-Grave memorial, so perhaps that or his middle name could be used. Although the title is similar to John V. Johnston and both articles would probably need hat notes to distinguish these two people. Alternatively, as a last resort, you could use parenthetical disambiguation, though the phrase "gambling entrepreneur" or, perhaps, "gambling kingpin" could be used, these do lead to a less concise title.
Before you develop this article much further, I suggest you consider the best option for naming the article and how it will be integrated into other Wikipedia articles, because this article is currently an orphan, even though this person is mentioned in several articles, including Jesse Binga, The Levee, Chicago, Timeline of organized crime in Chicago and 1890s in organized crime. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:25, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
- Would it be possible to just remove the quotation marks? Adding the middle name (V.) and parentheses would make it very long. And find a grave is the only website that mentions the "V." All the other websites and citations call him the current page title. Babin Mew (talk) 05:21, 30 December 2025 (UTC)
- @Babin Mew: Since you have boldly moved this page to John Mushmouth Johnson and almost all the sources that I can see use those three names to refer to him, that seems to follow the naming advice to use a commonly recognizable name and produces a title without having the quotes. I think you should run with the title. If anybody else has an objection, then they can make a move request, set out their reasons, and see if they can propose a better name. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 21:48, 30 December 2025 (UTC)