Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-26308988-20150509053250/@comment-4651179-20150509060503

We put the "(Earth-XXXXX)" next to every character in order to easily identify from which universe they are.

"Earth-XXXXX" is the nomenclature Marvel uses to name different universes. (If you need to know what do I mean by "different universes" and why are there different universes, let me know). "XXXXX" being the number officially given by Marvel to a given universe.

For example, the regular Marvel Universe is numbered 616, so its "formal" name is "Earth-616." The Marvel Cinematic Universe is numbered 199999, so its "formal" name is "Earth-199999."

Because in this wiki we document different universes, we need an easy way to tell from which universe certain character is, hence the title of their article is their name plus the universe they come from. Also, said different universes have their own, for example, Tony Stark. The Marvel Universe has its Tony Stark, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe does too. So to differentiate the pages of the Tony Stark from the Marvel Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe we name one Anthony Stark (Earth-616) and the other Anthony Stark (Earth-199999) and so on for the different Tony Starks from different universes.