Stan Shebs wrote:
Most organizations that deal with international names have MoSes that require use of current official names; WP is somewhat unusual in specifying "most common", which works well with names familiar to the general public, but breaks down for the less-known.
Perhaps not so unusual. For example the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, which are essentially the standard MoS for libraries in US, UK, Australia, and Canada, take a stance weighted even more heavily towards the use of English in place names:
"23.2A1 Use the English form of the name of a place if there is one in general use. Determine this from gazetteers and other reference sources published in English-speaking countries. In case of doubt, use the vernacular form."
A standard of "in general use" is perhaps less open to dispute than a standard of "most common".