There is a city in northern Europe called Danzig by Germans and Gdansk
by Poles. Both words have "Dan" as a common element.
The last time I waded into this dispute, it was about what the
"rightful" name of the city is -- or was, in various points in history.
The solution I proposed, and which attracted enough consensus for the
article to be unlocked, was for Wikipedia to:
1. Refuse to take sides on the issue of what the city OUGHT to be
called; and
2. Describe the dispute in the text of the article.
We also noted that the placement of the article at
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danzig or at
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gdansk should
NOT be taken as "official recognition" of one name or the other -- but
be based purely on however English-speaking people primarily refer to
the city.
I daresay the geographical standard, in the West anyway, is to pick the
most common form. Except if there's a dispute we use the slash, as in
"East Sea/Sea of Japan" which I saw in a recent article about Korea.
Ed Poor