Tardis:Characters with one name

Naming conventions Character names → Serials → Honourifics → Magazine issues → Astronomical objects → Years → Eras → Dates → Human → Parts of a series without clear individual titles → Humanoid → Speedy renames → Lists of appearances → Universe → Integers → Assuming species → In-universe counterparts of minors → Colour spectrum policy → Characters with one name

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T:ONE NAME

Characters with one known name usually require a disambiguation term of some kind. The same is true of characters who are known simply by their job title.

Imagine the case of a character named Spencer. In order to give the character a unique name, you'd need to add something else to the page title. By convention and agreement, our disambiguation term is the full title of the story in which he or she appeared. Thus:

• Spencer (The Faceless Ones)
• Spencer (The War Games)
• Spencer (Doctor Who and the Silurians)

Equally, characters known by simple job title are also disambiguated in the same way:

• Nurse (The Long Game)
• Nurse (School Reunion)
• Nurse (Out of Time)
• Nurse (Let's Kill Hitler)
• Nurse (The Wedding of River Song)
• Nurse (Spearhead from Space)

Which story do I choose?

Sometimes, characters with one name are in more than one episode. So which do you choose? According to a forum ruling, use the first story or episode as the disambiguation term. For instance, Nancy from The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances is at Nancy (The Empty Child).

Future proofing

The concept of disambiguation is covered in greater detail by our disambiguation policy.

In general, there is no need to disambiguate if the name or title hasn't been used in Doctor Who before. However, you should understand that this wiki is far from complete. There are many, many characters who have yet to get a page here. So if the name seems common enough to you, or if the job title is an ordinary profession, you should probably "future proof" the article name and disambiguate it only.

A good example of this "pre-emptive disambiguation" is Archer (Resurrection of the Daleks). At the time this policy page was written, there was probably another Archer in some piece of DWU fiction, but we just hadn't found them yet. So the editor properly assumed a future necessity and disambiguated. And in fact, we later found Archer (Dalek duplicate) and Archer (Fear Itself). Always ask yourself whether the name or title is common enough that we might one day encounter another character of the same name.

When not to disambiguate

Where you don't need to disambiguate are with names that seem more unique. Abaddon, Morbius, Risstaal — these are the kind of fanciful names that will likely remain unique.