Wikipedia:Naming conventions (immigrant ethnic groups)

The titles of articles for immigrant and ethnic minority groups are a controversial issue on Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not have any required naming convention for such articles, and this proposed guideline does not seek to mandate one. Instead, it merely describes existing practises, expands on how existing guidelines and policies such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:No original research apply to articles in this topic area, and points to previous discussions and other resources of interest.

If you would like to rename articles in this topic area, you should open a discussion on the Wikipedia:Requested moves page. Building consensus for article renaming helps to minimise friction between editors and ensures that a variety of options are explored before a decision is made.

Option 1: Combining demonyms

One common way to describe immigrant groups is by combining the demonyms of their country/region of origin and country/region of destination. Pluralisation and hyphenation vary. For example, for immigrants from Fooland to Barland:

• American-style (Fooian Barian), as in African American, Japanese Peruvian, or Chinese Filipino
• British-style (Barian Fooian), as in British Bangladeshi, Malaysian Chinese, or Volga Germans

There is no grammatical requirement in the English language that the name of an immigrant group must have the country of ethnic origin first and the country of citizenship/residence second. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Heritage permits both, stating:

• People are sometimes categorized by notable ancestry, culture, or ethnicity, depending upon the common conventions of speech for each nationality. A hyphen is used to distinguish the word order:
  1. Fooian Barians, nationality followed by heritage, such as Category:British Asians.
  2. Barian-Fooians, heritage followed by nationality, such as Category:Irish Americans.

In practise, this recommended use of the hyphen has often been disputed because many Asian American groups object to the use of the hyphen, and because the United States Census Bureau explicitly does not use the hyphen.

If reliable sources predominantly use one name (ordering and hyphenation) to refer to a specific group, and that title is reasonably unambiguous, it should be used as the article title. However, there are some reservations:

• Use of demonyms may incorrectly imply citizenship of the group in question.
• If both Fooland and Barland have sent large numbers of immigrants to each other, and neither country in question has an overwhelming usage of either the American or British convention, then it may be less confusing to use a title from option 2 or 3.
• If a given group is not referred to as either "Fooian Barian" or "Barian Fooian" in reliable sources, then inventing a name for them along those lines constitutes original research (synthesis of published material in order to advance a point) and fails Wikipedia's policy on verifiability

Option 2: Local names

Frequently, these are also the self-identifying name of the group in question, and may be in the language of the origin or destination country. Examples include:

• Koryo-saram, migrants from the northern half of the Korean Peninsula who settled in the Russian Far East in the late 19th and early 20th century and were deported to Central Asia in 1937; after their rehabilitation, some returned to their ancestral homes in North Korea in the late 1940s and early 1950s, while others went back to the Russian Far East; after the normalization of Soviet-South Korean relations, some also settled in South Korea. The name, which refers to Korea's Goryeo Dynasty, is a politically-neutral alternative to North and South Korea's competing Korean-language terms for "Korean people".
• Beta Israel, Jews of Ethiopian origin, some of whom have settled in Israel while others remain in Ethiopia. The name means "House of Israel" in Hebrew.
• Hindoestanen, people of South Asian origin in Dutch-speaking countries (Suriname and the Netherlands). The name comes from a Dutch language inflection of the Persian term Hindustan, an alternative name for either the modern Republic of India, the whole Indian subcontinent, or the areas from which Hindi speakers historically originated.

In some cases, these names help to delineate groups whose boundaries of membership cut across lines of residence, citizenship, and ethnicity. However, foreign-language terms are often opaque to non-specialist readers; per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), if the name is not widely used by English-language sources to refer to the group in question, Wikipedians should not seek to introduce such names for use as article titles, though they may still be mentioned in the article body.

Option 3: Descriptive titles

In cases where reliable sources don't predominantly use any titles which belong to Option 1 or Option 2, the remaining option is to use a long title which explicitly spells out which country is the origin and which is the destination:

• Fooian expatriates in Barland: commonly seen in category names, as in the Category:Expatriates hierarchy. Since this use of the demonym implies that the group in question are all Fooland citizens, the name might not be appropriate if a large portion of the group in question have instead naturalised as Barland citizens.
• Fooian immigrants in Barland or Fooian immigration to Barland: Similar to the above form. There is no clear dividing line between the terms "immigrant" and "expatriate". Articles about migration to particular subnational units sometimes use this form, as in the case of Chinese immigration to Hawaii.
• Barlandians of Fooian descent: also commonly seen in category names, as in the Category:People by ethnic or national descent hierarchy. Since this use of the demonym implies that the group in question are all Barland citizens, the name might not be appropriate if a large portion of the group retain Fooland citizenship and do not show a tendency towards naturalising as Barland citizens. Many articles about Canadian citizens also use this form.

Some patterns which are also seen, but not accepted by all editors, include:

• Fooians in Barland: may be confusing because it does not distinguish between Fooians actually living in Barland, and short-term Fooian visitors. Keeping in mind concerns about undue weight, the topic of Fooian tourism in Barland may also be worth a mention in an article focused on long-term residents, as the two groups often interact with each other.
• Ethnic Fooians in Barland: usage of the adjective "ethnic" has been disputed.
• Fooian diaspora in Barland: usage of the term "diaspora" has been disputed because it may incorrectly imply that the population in question were not voluntary migrants but were forced to leave Fooland not of their own free will (c.f. African diaspora, Jewish diaspora).

Other notes

Decorating articles about immigrant ethnic groups with the flags of the country of origin and the country of residence is not recommended. See Wikipedia:Manual of style (flags).