Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming conventions

In order to maintain some consistency in the naming of stub templates, several guidelines are used by WP:WSS when naming new templates. The following is a list of several of the most important guidelines to take into consideration when naming a stub template:

xx-stub

All stub templates should have names ending in "-stub". Note two things here:

there is a hyphen, not a space, prior to the word "stub".
the word "stub" is entirely in lower-case letters.

xx-xx-stub

When the name has three or more parts, hyphens are used between all sections. This is particularly notable with Hybrid/complex/composite/compound stubs (see below).

Use of lower case

In general, stub names use lower case letters (although the first letter of any template name is not case sensitive, so this may be upper or lower case). The main exceptions to this rule are cases where Proper nouns are used - the names of people or places which get capital letters when written normally. The following are some of the exceptions:

US-stub and its children (e.g., US-geo-stub)
UK-stub and its children (e.g., UK-bio-stub)
SA-stub
NZ-stub

Hybrid/complex/composite/compound stubs

These terms are four names for the same thing. When a stub type is created by the intersection of two large categories, the form xx-xx-stub should be used. Examples of these stubs are things like {{UK-geo-stub}}, which is the intersection of {{UK-stub}} and {{geo-stub}}, and {{France-bio-stub}}, which is the intersection of {{France-stub}} and {{bio-stub}}. These stubs are often referred to as the "children" of the larger categories of which they are the intersections

Order and usual form

In general, the vast majority composite stubs are formed by a combination of a geographical location and one other type of stub. Thus we have UK-hist-stubs, Australia-bio-stubs, Canada-geo-stubs, etc. In each case, a standard form should be used for the geographical component, and a standard form for the other component. These forms are as listed below:

The geographical component

With most countries and regions, the common name of the country is used as the geographical component. Stubs about Argentina receive Argentina-stub, those about India use India-stub, and so on. For some countries, however, an abbreviated form of the name is used. The following are the abbreviations or alternatives currently in use. Note that those cases marked with a * may soon be deprecated, replaced by more acceptable alternatives:

SA (or Sa*) - South Africa Taiwan, or ROC (or Roc*) - Republic of China (Taiwan) HK - Hong Kong Kyrg - Kyrgizstan Lao - Laos MEast - Middle East Leb - Lebanon Sg - Singapore SL - Sri Lanka NZ (or Kiwi*) New Zealand PNG - Papua New Guinea Dk - Denmark EU - European Union Gib - Gibraltar UK - United Kingdom CAmerica - Central America Salvador - El Salvador US - United States Calif - California NYC - New York City UT - Utah SouthAm - South America