The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Veracruz (city). Consensus indicates that this option has the most support. What (if anything) happens to Veracruz, Veracruz (state) and Veracruz (disambiguation) require separate discussion.  Philg88 ^{♦ talk} 09:12, 26 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Veracruz, Veracruz → Veracruz City – I think anyone would agree that the name of the city is Veracruz, but of course that name is taken by the Mexican state. It makes more sense to me that we would follow the examples of New York City, Chihuahua City, Mexico City, Guatemala City, etc., and move the article to the "X City" title. Red Slash 02:19, 9 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Survey

• Comment I would move Veracruz (disambiguation) to Veracruz, and move the state to Veracruz (state), as for the city, how about Veracruz (city) ? (Google hits are higher for the phrase "city of Veracruz" than the term "Veracruz City" or the term "Veracruz, Veracruz") " Veracruz, Mexico" would then point to the disambiguation page Veracruz (disambiguation) (which would be located at "Veracruz" after the moves). -- 67.70.35.44 ( talk) 06:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC) reply
  • I agree that Veracruz (city) is better than the proposal or the current title. Srnec ( talk) 22:52, 14 November 2014 (UTC) reply
    • WP:NATURAL is in disagreement with that; we prefer naturally-disambiguated titles even if they are not the most common. Red Slash 05:18, 15 November 2014 (UTC) reply
      • In this case, the city is not usually called "Veracruz City" and that title misleads people into thinking it is like Mexico City. — Srnec ( talk) 16:17, 15 November 2014 (UTC) reply
• Oppose the proposed title, which is too uncommon. No opinion on the possibility of Veracruz (city). Dekimasu よ! 00:46, 16 November 2014 (UTC) reply

• Support 67.70.35.44's proposal to move Veracruz (disambiguation) to Veracruz, move the state to Veracruz (state), and the city to Veracruz (city). —  AjaxSmack  03:34, 17 November 2014 (UTC) reply

• If the city is moved, that's fine, but I don't think the state or dab should be moved as a result of this move request since they weren't the main focus of the discussion and editors at those pages weren't alerted to the discussion. Dekimasu よ! 22:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC) reply

• Oppose not sure how this should be disambuguated, but definitely not as "Veracruz City". It just isn't used often enough. — innotata 04:43, 20 November 2014 (UTC) reply
• Oppose Veracruz City. Support Veracruz (city) (see also: Cork (city). Thought I'm also fine with disambiguating the state and move the city to the base name. -- В²C ☎ 00:31, 26 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Primary topic?

As this might have some bearing on the RM discussion, is the state of Veracruz really the primary topic and not the city? If not, move the state article instead and free up " Veracruz" for the city. —  AjaxSmack  02:02, 11 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Well, the state has 10x the population of the metro area of the city. Dekimasu よ! 03:24, 11 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Yeah, the state is more famous for Xalapa, etc... the city really can't make a decent claim on primary topic, IMO. Red Slash 03:50, 14 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Maybe... I'd certainly heard of the city, both in history classes and in news reports, but didn't even know that the state existed until now. Never heard of Xalapa until now. So on what basis is the state... more famous for Xalapa, etc, and what's the etc? Andrewa ( talk) 15:05, 16 November 2014 (UTC) reply

The "etc" is for other cities in the state. Veracruz City is a little bigger than Xalapa, which is famous for its peppers ( jalapeños). Less than 10% of people living in Veracruz live in the metro area of the city. I know, I was surprised too--I thought the city would dominate the state. But it doesn't, it really doesn't. I should have avoided the word "famous" and instead used "notable"; my bad. Red Slash 23:57, 16 November 2014 (UTC) reply

I only brought up the issue because Spanish Wikipedia has the city at Veracruz and the state at Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave. Note that I'm not suggesting that this should have any bearing on English Wikipedia's titles. —  AjaxSmack  03:34, 17 November 2014 (UTC) reply

There seem to be a couple of very shaky assumptions here. Yes, the jalapeño is famous, but how many of those who recognise it associate it with Xalapa? Not many, perhaps? Yes, in terms of population the city doesn't dominate the state, but so what? That's irrelevant in terms of our current policies and guidelines, so far as I can see, and I can't see any grounds for appealing against them here. The fact that you were surprised is however relevant... I suggest that many others would be similarly surprised, and if so that's an argument that the city is the primary meaning. Andrewa ( talk) 14:40, 17 November 2014 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. ( closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mello hi! ( 投稿) 20:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC) reply

Veracruz (city) → Veracruz City – This move has been requested and moved before from WP:RM/T, but it was moved back. Original request: accepted and moved and then the page was moved back.

Original Reasoning:

" WP:TITLECON with every other Mexican state capital. See links on List of states of Mexico. Individual cities links: (note that Veracruz is the only outlier of the format) Aguascalientes City, Chihuahua City, Colima City, Guanajuato City, Oaxaca City, San Luis Potosí City, Tlaxcala City, and Zacatecas City. Also, the WP:NATURALDAB for cities with the same name as their region is Place + City, as seen with Luxembourg City (Officially just Luxembourg, same with all the other cases here) Quebec City, New York City, and Djibouti City."

Moved this from a contested RM/T. BhamBoi ( talk) 17:36, 13 January 2023 (UTC) reply

Per the conventions at NATURALDAB, this name would be acceptable because it is still used in sources (albeit less than just Veracruz, which is an unfit title). Here is just one example I found [1] of "Veracruz City". City of Veracruz could work per [2], but it's not preferred. BhamBoi ( talk) 17:59, 13 January 2023 (UTC) reply

The more I look, I'm finding City of Veracruz such as here and Veracruz city (lowercase) here. I still think TITLECON might prevail. BhamBoi ( talk) 19:07, 13 January 2023 (UTC) reply

We could also move to Heroica Veracruz as it is the official name, and not definitively not the common name, especially considering Google Maps uses the official name Heroica Veracruz (Veracruz). BhamBoi ( talk) 19:14, 13 January 2023 (UTC) reply

Oppose. Disclosure: it was me who moved this article back to Veracruz (city) a few weeks ago.

A couple of minor comments first: " WP:TITLECON with every other Mexican state capital": Veracruz isn't the state capital. OK, that's pedantic, but the closest parallel (non-capital sharing its name with its state) is Sinaloa de Leyva, in the municipality of Sinaloa, Sinaloa; Sinaloa City isn't even a redirect. And (more pedantry) "with every other Mexican state capital": for some reason the capital of Puebla is at Puebla (city) (there's a 2019 talk page mention of a move that got reverted back to that location). So, clearly, some people aren't happy with these "XXXX City" names.

Ultimately, though, having this article at Veracruz City is simply incorrect, drawing on a false equivalence with Mexico City, Guatemala City, Panama City, etc. Those three are known, internationally and undeniably, by those names. That's not true of Veracruz: it isn't known as "Veracruz City" outside Wikipedia — and, ok, admittedly, various other places on the internet that, over the past ten years or so, have taken their cue from here (astonishing: such is our power as Wikipedians, but Wikipedia is here to record the world, not shape it). There's a reference above to the Britannica article on the state of Veracruz; the city article defines it as "Veracruz, in full Veracruz Llave, city and port on the Gulf of Mexico, Veracruz estado (state), east-central Mexico." Not a "Veracruz City" in sight. If it were known as "Veracruz City", then you'd expect the phrase to turn up in every paragraph in our article here: it doesn't, because it's not its name, something that the editors who actually wrote the article know. More evidence that "Veracruz City" isn't its name? Our article United States occupation of Veracruz, which isn't at United States occupation of Veracruz City and where "Veracruz City" doesn't appear. Jack London was there as a war correspondent in 1914: does he call it "Veracruz City"? No, he calls it "Vera Cruz". The Guardian doesn't call it Veracruz City. Neither does the Mexican Tourist Board. Or the United Nations. The BBC? No. Where does Aeroméxico fly to? Mexico City and Panama City, sure, but Veracruz, not Veracruz City.

Aeroméxico also flies to Queretaro [sic], Aguascalientes, Campeche, Chihuahua etc., too (not to Querétaro City, Aguascalientes City, Campeche City, Chihuahua City, etc.). American Airlines doesn't serve Veracruz, but it does fly to Mexico City, Querétaro City, Oaxaca City, and Zacatecas City.

I therefore submit that, WP:TITLECON notwithstanding, all those cities' articles are misplaced. Someone decided a little consistency would be nice (Mexico City, Guatemala City...) and proceeded to move them all, because that's how they thought the world should be, ignoring how they are referred to in the real world (these are real-world places, inhabited by real people). This article should remain at Veracruz (city), in line with the 2014 requested move just above here on the talk page. There are precedents for that solution: see Cork (city) (and the reams of discussion on its talk page).

As for the others — Querétaro City, Aguascalientes City, San Luis Potosí City and the others — because they're made-up names, made up by someone who decided how the world should be, they should be brought into line with Veracruz (city) and Puebla (city), not the other way around. But as the adage goes, Life is short; don't forget to spend as much of it as possible arguing with strangers on the internet. And here I am on a Friday night. Moscow Mule ( talk) 05:04, 14 January 2023 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the detailed and well-thought-out oppose. I appreciate your research effort BhamBoi ( talk) 20:27, 14 January 2023 (UTC) reply

I do agree with your notes. With that said, there are also cases of "Veracruz City" on enwiki here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (and there are still more cases); do you think those instances should all be changed?

Would you support "Heroica Veracruz" over the status quo of "Veracruz (city)"? It is used in very popular mapping platforms (see: Heroica Veracruz on Google Maps, above), so people may be familiar with that name. BhamBoi ( talk) 20:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC) reply

First of all, thanks for your kind words, here and on my talk page. I don't want to make this all about me, but so far (and I put a note on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mexico last night) no one else has turned up with an opinion. Anyway, your direct questions:

"Heroica Veracruz"? It's better than Veracruz City (in that it has more real-world usage), but it flies in the face of WP:COMMONNAME.

Change instances of Veracruz City in other articles? Absolutely. They could be quite happily pipe-linked to the city of Veracruz, which (to me at least) sounds a lot more natural than drawing the false "Panama City" equivalence.

Why the dislike for the "(city)" disambiguator? It works perfectly for Cork (city), which is a very comparable case. And it's similar to what was forced on Chihuahua (state) and Hidalgo (state) because of small dogs and Spanish noblemen. Moscow Mule ( talk) 03:19, 15 January 2023 (UTC) reply

No particular dislike, I just liked the idea of consistency among the Mexican cities. There was also a successful similar RM at Talk:Djibouti City (albeit it did have more sources using the name) to move it to a "… City" format.

This likely is a WP:IDLI situation, but I just don't think it looks as good (although it is concise) to have something other than just words in the name (again, for consistency; I think the other Mexican states' cities wikinames are all just words Except for Puebla (city), which was moved similarly to that.) ← I've gone off an a tangent, this argument doesn't really matter. I say we need to wait for more voices before a consensus.

You're right, Heroica Veracruz does not have much usage (except on Google Maps, which is a pretty influential source, but I don't see much else independent from that, the few things I found were all like this or passing mentions using that name). BhamBoi ( talk) 03:59, 15 January 2023 (UTC) reply

Cities getting named "heroic" is official, but I'm not sure whether that necessarily changes the "official name" (as the city's lead para claims): maybe it's on a case-by-case basis? I read it more as an honorific, only brought out on special occasions. But I see that someone moved "Nogales, Sonora", to Heroica Nogales a couple of months ago (despite the intro saying "more commonly known as 'Nogales'", and despite all the road signs from Hermosillo up to the border indicating an unqualified "Nogales"), so a precedent of sorts does exist.

But you're right. More voices needed. Moscow Mule ( talk) 04:43, 15 January 2023 (UTC) reply

I actually did find a WorldAtlas page indicating that Heroica Veracruz and Veracruz Llave are different places… BhamBoi ( talk) 20:06, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

• Oppose per every character typed by Moscow Mule above. Veracruz City is simply wrong as the title because that’s not a commonly used name for the city. Worse, if we use that as our title other sources will follow suit to the point where it could become a commonly used name. We don’t want to do that! We’re supposed to follow usage in sources, not influence it. -- В²C ☎ 17:47, 15 January 2023 (UTC) reply
• Confused. I have never understood the key reason why the "Namesakecity, Namesakestate" disambiguation style was deprecated, and I suspect it is caused by an I-don't-like-it reason because in itself it is not incorrect. Ignoring that, according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Mexico, "The cities that share names with states have been placed at Placename City, with the state taking the Placename location: for example, Oaxaca City, (city) and Oaxaca (state)." Veracruz and Puebla are, for some reason, the only exceptions, why are they the only exception? Because the remaining cities are neither known as X City either (who calls it San Luis Potosí City?). The only city known as City is Mexico City. (CC)  Tbhotch ^™ 21:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  That guideline to include City in the title when it’s not part of the name of the city is essentially being challenged per WP:IAR as inconsistent with broader naming policy and conventions, per the reasons stated above, by those of us who are opposing. —- В²C ☎ 22:40, 15 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  Based on that you linked, the conventions do seem to support the tacked on City at the end. BhamBoi ( talk) 23:18, 15 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  Yes, nobody is disputing what the specific conventions say. We're saying the convention itself is the problem because it contradicts broader policy and conventions. -- В²C ☎ 01:50, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  And what's the broader convention and why the other 10 Category:Capitals of states of Mexico using the recommended style don't follow it (I know that Xalapa is the capital city of Veracruz, just for this RM it is not required to be pedantic on the status). (CC)  Tbhotch ^™ 01:57, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  There's the diff where it was changed on the "naming conventions" page (back in 2015). But I can't find any discussion on the talk page archives there. Reading the various state capitals' talk pages does lead me to the conclusion that it was just on the basis of that one 2014 RM to move Chihuahua, Chihuahua — which the nominator considered "absurd" — to Chihuahua City, which was then railroaded through on all the others as a "precedent" had been set. Moscow Mule ( talk) 02:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

• Support Heroica Veracruz, to solve the basename ambiguity, with something widely used. The long version is Heroica ciudad y puerto de Veracruz. It is not called a city, I guess, because it is known as a port. Oppose the proposed as not used. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  Of course the proposed is not used; it includes a disambiguator. The part of a parenthetically disambiguated title that reflects common usage excludes the disambiguator. Your "not used" argument precludes using countless parenthetically disambiguated titles. Here's a sampling from a few hits of SPECIAL:RANDOM: Thomas Glenn (pioneer), George W. Scott (American football), USS Cero (SP-1189), Chung Uk Tsuen (Tai Po District), Valiant Lady (ship), Odakkuzhal (poetry collection), The Oranges (film)... all of these would be opposed per your "not used" argument. Are you serious? -- В²C ☎ 08:44, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  The proposed is “Veracruz City”. No parentheses. Natural disambiguation is preferred to parenthetical disambiguation, but only of the natural disambiguation is sometimes used. SmokeyJoe ( talk) 12:42, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  My apologies! I was confused. Is Heroica Veracruz sufficiently commonly used in English RS to qualify as WP:NATURAL? The bar isn’t “sometimes used”. It’s “commonly used, albeit not as commonly as the (ambiguous) most common name”. — В²C ☎ 17:05, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  Hmm. Ngrams suggests Heroica Veracruz is not commonly used, at all; about five times less common than even Veracruz City, which is thousands of times less common than Veracruz. I don't see how it possibly meets the "also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title" threshold established in NATURAL. -- В²C ☎ 17:56, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  If we're looking for WP:NATURALDAB, then that'd be Veracruz, Veracruz. Which would align with Minatitlán, Veracruz; Córdoba, Veracruz (also "heroic"); Nogales, Veracruz; etc. But that convention was overturned as "absurd" (albeit with very little discussion) in 2014. Would WP:NATURALDAB also allow Tlaxcala City to be moved to Tlaxcala de Xicohténcatl? Campeche City to San Francisco de Campeche? Querétaro City to Santiago de Querétaro? That's WP:TITLECON out the window, then. But I'm not as deeply involved in policy as some of the other commentators here appear to be, so I don't know what takes preference there. WP:NATURALDAB does appear to get (ab)used as a way of deprecating parenthetical disambiguators, presumably because people don't like them. Moscow Mule ( talk) 18:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  Also, at Wikipedia:Official_names#Valid_use_of_official_names: "[Official names] should be used only if they are actually the name most commonly used." I'm not finding any support in policy, guidelines or conventions to use "Heroica Veracruz" as the title here, much less to prefer it over the current parenthetically disambiguated title. -- В²C ☎ 18:17, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  Has anyone found a killer smoking-gun reference to support "Heroica Veracruz" being the official name? I haven't. The municipal government doesn't use it. And while en:Veracruz (city) claims that it is (unreferenced), es:Veracruz makes no such claim. Honorific, sobriquet, title, byname: maybe. Moscow Mule ( talk) 19:02, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

  No. Heroica Veracruz doesn’t seem to check out. Ngrams puts it below Veracruz City, and I’m not finding it at all in the reference list. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 20:54, 16 January 2023 (UTC) reply

• Oppose. Its clear common name is just Veracruz. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 14:13, 18 January 2023 (UTC) reply
• Oppose per my comments at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Mexican state capitals with the same name as their states. Pinguinn  🐧 20:57, 18 January 2023 (UTC) reply