Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)

/Talk archive before March 2003 Talk:Naming Conventions (Names and titles) Archive 2 Talk:Naming Conventions (Names and titles) Archive 3 Talk:Naming Conventions (Names and titles) Archive 4 Talk:Naming Conventions (Names and titles) Archive 5 Talk:Naming Conventions (names and titles) Archive 6 Talk:Naming Conventions (names and titles) Archive 7 Talk:Naming Conventions (names and titles) Archive 8

My suggested alternative is to use both upfront, but to distinguish them and avoid clutter, the royal name should be in bold, then a comma, then the personal name should be in bold italics.

For example:

• Rainier III, Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand de Grimaldi (born May 31, 1923), is the hereditary Prince of Monaco.
• Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor (born April 21, 1926) is the Queen and head of state of the United Kingdom (and 16 Commonwealth Realms).
• Queen Victoria, Alexandrina Victoria Wettin of the Royal House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (May 24, 1819 - January 22, 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom for a record sixty-three years, seven months, and two days (June 20, 1837 - January 22, 1901).
• John Paul II, Karol Jozef Wojtyla (pronounced Voy-tee-wah) (born 18 May, 1920) was born in Wadowice, Poland.

I tried this proposal out in the Rainier III of Monaco article and it worked well and looked less alkward than the alternatives. (That article originally had his personal name up front, with his princely title buried further down the line). We also need I think to sort out a standardised opening paragraphs. The above cut and paste jobs show some of the variations we have. I would suggest the following form:

OPENING PARAGRAPH: {monarchical title} {royal name} {ordinal if more than one}, {personal name (surname if known)}, of the Royal House of {name}, (dates) . . . information on their throne.

SECOND PARAGRAPH: 'x' was born . . .

I think putting in the Royal House details is useful given that many royals have different surnames from their Royal House/Royal Family name, eg, Victoria's surname was Wettin but her Royal House name was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. I think (though I am by no means certain, that Russian Royals technically weren't Romanovs but of the Royal House of Romanov. If we don't know, we can leave out the surname altogether as the Royal House name is there. BTW Royal House is already defined on wiki so all we need to do is put in Royal House and people if they don't know what it is can go to the linked page.

Putting in their monarchical title up front also solves a problem that arises if they don't have an ordinal. Starting off an article with Victoria or Juan Carlos doesn't work as well as with Elizabeth II, Rainier III, etc. It reads alwardly and doesn't tell you their key defining characteristic up front, that they were/are a monarch, that fact often not being stated until the end of the sentence and not being immediately obvious in the absence of an ordinal.

In practice this would turn the QEII and JPII entries into:

• Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor of the Royal House of Windsor (born April 21, 1926) is Queen of the United Kingdom and 16 Commonwealth Realms, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

• John Paul II, Karol Jozef Wojtyla (pronounced Voy-tee-wah) (born 18 May, 1920) is pope of the Roman Catholic Church and head of state of Vatican City. He was elected to the papacy in October 1978 following the sudden death of Pope John Paul I on September 29, 1978.

Any observations, folks?

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other but would like to note the WikiStandard of placing the real birth name of a person first, then giving the date range of their life in parenthesis and finally give the name or names that they are most widely known as. See Billy the Kid for an example. The reasoning is that the name by which a person dies under is sometimes not the same as the name they were born under and the placement of the birth/death parenthesis gives the impression that whatever name comes before it was the name the person was born under. So giving the birth name first is more precise. --mav 01:23 29 May 2003 (UTC)

That can work OK when dealing with ordinary people but with monarchs I think it is unworkable. For example, that would produce Margrethe Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg as the opening words of the page on Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. Nobody, not even her parents ever called her that. She was and is known either as Princess Margrethe or Queen Margrethe. Nobody ever used the name "Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, they used Princess Elizabeth or Queen Elizabeth. People would begin scratching their heads with puzzlement if they found themselves being told an article was about Alexandrina Victoria Wettin', a name they never would have heard of, as she was only ever known as Princess Victoria or Queen Victoria. And nobody but a historian would know who Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto is, because the entire world knows him (if they know him at all) as Pope Pius X.

That is why we don't use personal names as the article names for royalty, using Margrethe II of Denmark rather than [[Margrethe Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg]]. In the case of people who had a 'proper name' and then got a nickname, like Billy the Kid, it is logical to put the proper name first. But royal names are basically something never used; they are put on a birth certificate and forgotten about. To put what was effectively a non-used name ahead of the real one would in those cases be wrong in my view. It would also be potentially seen as POV; one of the things republicans often do, for example, is to use personal names instead of royal names as their way of expressing their republicanism and giving the two fingers to monarchy. In Greece, even though international naming traditions suggest that a deposed monarch who has not abdicated is called by his reign name for his lifetime (or until he abdicates), but with the title dying with him, left wing republicans insist of referring to exiled King Constantine II as Constantine Glücksburg . Were we to put that name first in the article, we would be seen to be accepting that they are right and so be seen by Greek republicans and Greek monarchists as taking one of the argument. Instead the article follows the strict naming traditions regarding deposed monarchs, not getting tangled up in Greek political arguments.

The standard history approach to naming monarchs or popes is:

• use highest regal title first;
• for popes, papal title put first;
• personal names if used at all (and most don't) treated as subsidary because they never were actually used outside the family circle if even there;
• Because they lack an ordinal to enable people to tell consorts apart, consorts revert to maiden name or maiden title after their death or more usually after a period of time following their deaths when they have reverted from having a contemporary identificaton to being merely a historical figure.

What I am proposing is to follow this standard on royal naming just as we do in terms of article title, non use of styles in article titles, etc. Using unused generally unrecognisable names first would in my view be anything but precise. FearÉIREANN 03:27 29 May 2003 (UTC)

I think that this is a good way of building on articles that we already have in a consistent way. In the first couple of years we just wanted to get a decent number of stubs giving a broad shallow coverage, so the haphazard way we've worked (myself particularly) has been reasonable. Originally the article titles were purely for disambiguation (so that we could have separate articles on Alexander) and we didn't worry about their accuracy as the information was supposed to be handled in the article but nowadays we are taking a rather different line. In any case, the easy work is pretty well done, and it's definitely time to give a deeper more consistent treatment to this area for those who are interested in it.

What you've suggested is good for the intro paragraph and I'd be quite happy with it as it stands but I feel that it has the flavour of a Wikiproject. I think that it just might be worthwhile extending it to a simple template, listing not just the names, titles and main significant feature but also the general form of the article, ie when they became significant and why, when they stopped and why (which is in the papacy example that you have above but not in the Royal example). Note that I'm not suggesting that the template should contain the items that I've mentioned, just that some template would be good as it would give people a checklist of things to research, thus, with luck, improving the quality of all contributors' additions (as the other Wikiprojects, by and large, have done for their subject areas). -- Derek Ross 01:59 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Thought I'd pipe in. A couple of thoughts - I mostly agree with jtd, but I have a few quibbles. One of them has nothing to do with standards, but is just a peeve (and one that's been long growing on me every time I look at the Victoria page). She was a Wettin or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha only by marriage. She was a Guelph or Hanoverian by birth. None of the other reigning female monarchs of England/Great Britain/The UK are referred to as being members of their husband's royal house. Mary I is a Tudor, not a Habsburg; Mary II and Anne are Stuarts, not Orange-Nassau and Denmark/Oldenburg. And Queen Elizabeth II is neither a Mountbatten nor an Oldenburg/Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg/Greece&Denmark (Oh, and the Romanovs were not Romanovs in any sense. The official name of the house was the Imperial House of Russia. The dynasty name, according to the Gotha, was Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov.)

But, more seriously, a couple of thoughts: the idea of a surname for monarchs is somewhat silly in general. To say, for instance, that Ludwig II of Bavaria's surname was Wittelsbach doesn't really mean anything. The dynasty is called the Wittelsbach's because the earliest member of the dynasty we know about ruled a place called Wittelsbach. The same is true for most German dynasty names. Further, it runs into problems with recent members of German royal houses, who have taken their royal title names and made them into their surnames. Although the current head of the Royal House of Prussia is a member of the Hohenzollern dynasty (in the same sense that Ludwig II was a member of the Wittelsbach dynasty), his surname is actually "Prinz von Preussen". In general, I don't think the surname concept works very well for most royals, and should be abandoned. House name, on the other hand, is a useful distinction, and ought to be noted. A further suggestion: I think it would be helpful for both noble and royal figures whose name customarily changed throughout their life to give some indication of the styles by which they were known throughout their life, and the dates on which they were called each. (This would be if there were some sort of box, I think).

I have rambling further thoughts, but they seem to be getting more annoying as I go on, so I'll stop and wait. john 03:59 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Okay, my original thoughts were still too rambling and annoying, despite my deleting the most rambling and annoying parts. So: basically agree, this seems a good way to do it, except I think we should be very wary of surnames unless they were actually used to refer to the person (as, for instance, the Spanish monarch, who is actually called, so far as I know, Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon). One thing I do think, though, is that some thought should be put into titles of princesses who married princes of foreign houses (who never became reigning monarchs). Should they, like royal consorts, be referred to by their maiden name? This seems the simplest way to do it. thus, Lady Henrietta Anne Stuart and Countess Palatine Elisabeth Charlotte of Simmern (or Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate) for the wives of Louis XIV's little brother, rather than "Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orleans" or "Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans"; or Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg for George III's mother, rather than "Augusta, Princess of Wales". Does this work? john 04:13 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Good points. Re surnames, I agree. I created the Royal House to try to get around the surnames nightmare. The trouble is (as a few of us found when we tried first to sort out the royal naming mess that wiki used to have) that if don't put in a surname, someone else will, and usually what they come up with is absolute cobblers. I have been unhappy with the surnames used for Russian royalty for a while so I am so glad someone knows the right one. Re Victoria, the problem is that her marriage changed the Royal House name in the way, for example Queen Mary I's marriage didn't, by the simple fact that she had no children and so the throne was inherited by her half-sister who was also a Tudor. So it seemed wrong to use her post-marital Royal House name and pre-marital surname and her pre-marital Royal House name would perhaps be wrong (or at least liable to be changed by someone who insists that of course it should be Saxe-Coburg-Gotha! And if you don't put in a surname, someone else will, calling her God knows what (probably Windsor or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha!). Victoria herself accepted that her surname (well marital) surname was Wettin though to coin a phrase, she was 'not amused'!

As to changing styles, great idea. I think a text book would be ideal for that if we can do that. Re the rest - I'm too tired to think. Its 6.04am and I swore I would not spend all night on wiki, or at least not see another dawn. Not seeing it? It is grinning in the window at me, so, as we say in Irish Tá mé ag dul go dtí mo leaba (I am going to my bed.) Slán agus oiche mhaith. FearÉIREANN 05:04 29 May 2003 (UTC)

I don't disagree with your suggestions above, although it seems a bit of a Rolls-Royce solution. (Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.) As usual, I say let's not be too hasty in changing things that work, even if they are not 100% satisfactory. I didn't even know there was a convention (mentioned by mav above) of putting the birth name first in an article. I don't think I've ever done that unless the birth name happened to be the best-known name. But, broadly speaking, I'm happy to go along with your proposal for the time being.

I have to say, also, that I've been a bit concerned about the growing habit (maybe "habit" is the wrong word - "tendency" is perhaps more polite) to worry about including every possible title the person has ever had or used, including the names of all countries they've ever been monarch of, their "official" title even if it's one they've never used. You could argue that this is the function of an encyclopedia, but it doesn't half make for controversy without contributing very much to knowledge. Deb 17:24 29 May 2003 (UTC)

What exactly are you referring to? Are you referring to somebody who puts the full titulary of King Juan Carlos (who is, sadly, the only monarch to retain a ridiculously long titulary, even if it isn't usually used)? Or putting in a nobleman's subsidiary titles? (I sometimes do that, and sometimes don't. I don't see what harm it does). Or referring to the different styles by which a person was known throughout their life (Lord Robert Cecil to Viscount Cranborne to the Marquess of Salisbury)? john 20:58 29 May 2003 (UTC)

None of those things. In fact, I wasn't referring to "somebody", but to a general trend. For example, the second paragraph of the article on Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, or the listing of Sophie Wessex's full official title ("Princess Edward, blah-di-blah"). It's not that I think it does any "harm" exactly, I just think there are more interesting things to note about those people. Don't get me wrong, I care as much about correct titles as anyone (well, you know that from experience), but I don't want to get so hung up on it that everything else goes out the window. Deb 21:13 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't offended, I just wasn't sure exactly what you were referring to. I think what you're saying is similar to my first example (Juan Carlos's official titulary, which is insanely long, and includes his status as Archduke of Austria and King of Jerusalem, among other places not in Spain). I think that can sometimes be interesting, but sometimes not. I agree that Princess Edward is kind of silly (she was born Sophie Rhys-Jones, and is now known as HRH The Countess of Wessex, calling herself "Sophie Wessex" in her professional life when she had one) And I certainly agree that having actual information about the person is probably more worthwhile, so long as the title is fairly correct. In general, I think it's much more important to know what the person was actually called than to worry about all the titles they held. john 21:25 29 May 2003 (UTC)

A further question I thought I'd bring up here, to see what the other title gurus think. The page for Empress Elisabeth, Franz Joseph's wife was formerly at "Elisabeth of Austria". I insisted, over the lukewarm opposition of the Sisi admirers, on moving it to "Elisabeth of Bavaria", since she was born "Elisabeth, Duchess in Bavaria" (and Elisabeth in Bavaria wouldn't make sense, while Elisabeth, Duchess in Bavaria would imply that she was never a reigning monarch's consort). Was this the right thing to do? john 21:25 29 May 2003 (UTC)

A quick glance at my biog dic finds her under "Elizabeth of Bavaria", so I would say (not knowing a heck of a lot about it) that you were spot on. Deb 21:30 29 May 2003 (UTC)

RE use of real names: How about the format used at Benny Goodman which gives the most widely-used name, then the birth name, then the bith/death parens? --mav 09:20 31 May 2003 (UTC)

How about most widely used name, birth/death parens, then other names the person used, in chronological order if more than two? That accommodates people who have been known by more than two names (which is fairly common among British nobility, or European royalty) john 17:11 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Good idea. One quibble - Benny Goodman was a colloqual name, in effect a stage name, such as is Madonna, Bono, etc. However in royalty, each name is a real name, not a colloqual name, nor a stage name. So one cannot say Eliazabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary (if that it what it was - I'm too lazy to check!!!) because she still is EAM and QEII simultaneously. He was not born with one and moved to the other. Born suggests she moved from one to the other, which would be inaccurate in the case of royalty. That is why I suggested the form reign name, personal name, and that given a personal name may be quite long, rather than giving a potentially confusing opening line with people presuming they were all one together, they would be giving equality by bolding but separated and clearly shown to be separate by italicising the latter following a comma. Subsequent titles could be plain italicised. For example:

Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor (born [1926]) is the Queen of the . . . . . . She was born as Princess Elizabeth of York, daughter of the then second in line to the throne, Prince Albert, Duke of York and his wife Elizabeth. When he unexpectedly became king in 1936, following the abdication of his oldest brother, Edward VIII, Elizabeth became simply Princess Elizabeth and first in line to the throne as Heir Presumptive.

She became simply The Princess Elizabeth of course. Somewhere in the article styles should be noted, as well. Otherwise, this looks pretty solid. john 22:51 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Two points: Re styles. I could not agree with you more. I have been in favour of that from day 1. Re The Princess Elizabeth - If this was my encyclopædia, I would have it that way. But it isn't. I know from the almightly battle we faced to kill of the nonsensical Mr. [[Charles Windsor]] etc that there is a loud minority for whom titles of any sort seem stupid, nonsensical and POV. Wiki has got to strike a balance between (i) accuracy, (ii) usability, andf (iii) acceptability. That often means that we go for 80% accuracy rather than 100% accuracy; eg, we have Charles, Prince of Wales even though that technically is wrong, because the correct version, The Prince of Wales is not workable. Using The Princess Elizabeth might well be a step too far for those who already find our current reasonably accurate but 'monarchist' titles "too much" for their republican sensibilities. It would also require renaming and the changing of texts throughout wiki.

I would suggest dealing with this in the form of a footnote, with the generally used form in the text and the absolutely accurate version as a footnote. That would produce the following.

Example of Text Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor (born [1926]) is the Queen of the . . . . . . She was born as Princess Elizabeth of York, daughter of the then second in line to the throne, Prince Albert, Duke of York and his wife Elizabeth. When he unexpectedly became king in 1936, following the abdication of his oldest brother, Edward VIII, Elizabeth became simply Princess Elizabeth¹ and first in line to the throne as Heir Presumptive.

Footnote

¹ Technically all royal princes and royal princesses use the word the before their princely name. Hence the above would be The Princess Elizabeth. However though strictly accurate that form is not generally used.

FearÉIREANN 03:20 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

My suggestion would be that while we not especially worry whether she's called "Princess Elizabeth" or "the Princess Elizabeth" in the texts of articles, a section of the article which details her various styles through the years should give the correct style.

Thus:

Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor (born [1926]) is the Queen of the . . . . . . She was born as HRH Princess Elizabeth of York, daughter of the then second in line to the throne, Prince Albert, Duke of York and his wife Elizabeth. When he unexpectedly became king in 1936, following the abdication of his oldest brother, Edward VIII, Elizabeth became simply HRH The Princess Elizabeth¹ and first in line to the throne as Heir Presumptive.

Then, for the rest of the article, anything about her before her accession can be "Princess Elizabeth" (I suppose her time as HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh should also be mentioned), without worrying too much that that's not completely accurate. john 03:48 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I just started a page to detail the various royal and noble styles. Currently, I only have those for royal and princely families, and for the nobility of Britain and Germany. If anyone wants to help out by adding other countries, that'd be great. (I also fear that I haven't done the best job of explaining what a style is. Perhaps I should work on that.) john 04:13 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Anyone see the Classical Brit Awards? They introduced the Duchess of Kent as "Katherine Kent". Who wants to ring Buckingham Palace? Deb 07:04 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I put in the following on the Wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) page, Other Royals, point number 6:

For visual clarity, an article should begin with the form {royal title} {name} {ordinal if appropriate}, full name (+ surname if known) with the former in bold (3 's) and the latter in bold italics (5 's). In practice, this means for example an article on Britain's Queen Elizabeth should begin Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor - with the royal title and name in bold and the personal name in bold italics. Using this format makes sure all the naming information is instantly visible with the distinction highlighted through italics. Other information on royal titles should be listed where appropriate in chronological order.

Does everyone agree with this wording? FearÉIREANN 18:24 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Yep - sounds good to me - 'course i was the one who added the surnames for Nicholas II and his daughters - there is plenty of evidence of them using Romanov (or Romanova for the females) as their surname after the Revolution - many of Olga Nikolaevna's letters from Tobolsk end with "Olga R." for example.

Although finding John edited it out of the articles makes me more than a little upset!

PMelvilleAustin 04:43 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Patriarch conventions

Given the paragraphs under Clerical Names, no reference was made to the patriarchs of constantinople, let alone other patriarchs in Near East and Eastern Europe. For consistency and clarity, I proposed 2 systems:

1)all patriarchs shall be named [[Patriarch (title) (ordinal) of (name of the place)]] even if that person has a more common nomenclature. [[John Chrysostom]] would become [[Patriarch John I of Constantinople]]

2) similar to 1), but drop the Patriarch from the title, i.e. [[John Chrysostom]] would become [[John I of Constantinople]]

kt2

Yeah 'clerical names' is an evolving concept here. Popes and cardinals were sorted through seeing the problems that arise if other alternatives were used.

I think (1) is the logical one to use. (2) would be wrong and ill-advised. The reasons are:

1. religions often use naming conventions very similar to royal naming conventions. We have to be careful to use a form that avoids confusing users as to what they are looking at. [[name {ordinal} of location]] should for clarity be restricted to royalty and to those ancient figures generally known in that form. Using a religious title would avoid causing confusion to users.
   
   
2. Given that we use pope for the head of the Roman Catholic Church, I think we show a similar tendency to use the equally appropriate title for Orthodox leaders. So I think Patriarch should be used.

As to John Chrysostom, I would argue that we should use redirects. Given that google users are far more likely to use that form of name rather than Patriarch John I of Constantinople, and that the JC form is universally recognisable throughout christendom whereas his patriarch's title would be recognisable to simply one branch of christianity, we should put the main text as John Chrysostom and a redirect at [[Patriarch John I of Constantinople]] to it. That way he would show up in the list of patriarchs but would be found in the name most people would know him as.

FearÉIREANN 20:01 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Largely agree with jtd, I think. "John I of Constantinople" might introduce confusion with Emperor John I Tzimisces, for instance. And "John Chrysostom" is so universally recognized that it should be the main article, and the other the redirect. john 20:12 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)