Wikipedia:Notability (people)

This page documents an English Wikipedia notability guideline.

Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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A person is presumed to be notable if they have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.
Notability criteria may need to be met for a person to be included in a stand-alone list.

On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article. For people, the person who is the topic of a biographical article should be "worthy of notice"^[1] or "note"^[2]—that is, "remarkable"^[2] or "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded"^[1] within Wikipedia as a written account of that person's life. "Notable" in the sense of being famous or popular—although not irrelevant—is secondary.

This notability guideline for biographies^[3] reflects consensus reached through discussions and reinforced by established practice, and informs decisions on whether an article about a person should be written, merged, deleted, or further developed. For advice about how to write biographical articles, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.

The article title should define what the article is about. If there is enough valid content to fill an article about a person, then that person's name (such as Abraham Lincoln or Marie Antoinette) would be an appropriate title. If, however, there is only enough information about one notable event related to the person, then the article should be titled specifically about that event, such as Travis Walton incident. Sometimes when a famous person dies, there is enough information for an article about their death, such as Death of Michael Jackson or Death of Diana, Princess of Wales. If a notable person's main article is too long to contain all of their works, then a separate page can be created for that information, such as George Orwell bibliography. If the person was the victim of a notable murder, then a title such as Murder of Kitty Genovese is appropriate.

^ ^a ^b "Notable". Encarta. Archived from the original on May 28, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2018.
^ ^a ^b "Notable". American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved January 17, 2015.
^ While this guideline also pertains to small groups of closely related people such as families, co-authors, and co-inventors, it does not cover groups of unrelated people, which are covered by the notability guideline for organizations and companies.

[Encarta-1] "Notable". Encarta. Archived from the original on May 28, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2018.

[Heritage-2] "Notable". American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved January 17, 2015.

[3] While this guideline also pertains to small groups of closely related people such as families, co-authors, and co-inventors, it does not cover groups of unrelated people, which are covered by the notability guideline for organizations and companies.

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