Talk:Mikhaylovsky (surname)

Origins[edit]

I've changed "Ukrainian origin" to Slavic origin, because various sources place the origins of this last name in Poland, the territory of modern Ukraine, or adjacent territories. Yet other sources indicate that the last name is derived from a baptismal name. However, none of the sources I've found are exactly high-quality, so if you have anything truly reliable, please add it to the article. In the meanwhile, generic "Slavic" should work just fine.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 25, 2011; 13:56 (UTC)

On second thought, generic or not, this requires sources just the same. I've thus added a "citation needed" request.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 25, 2011; 17:14 (UTC)

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. The consensus is that RETAIN does not apply in this case. Jenks24 (talk) 09:44, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mikhaylovsky (last name) → Mikhaylovsky (surname) – As virtually all surname/last name disambiguation pages use surname as identifier and the category also uses this term I can see little reason for a deviation here Inwind (talk) 17:20, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I wasn't going to participate, but I see my concern has been omitted from the nomination. Whatever the outcome is, I would like the closing admin to consider the WP:ENGVAR/WP:RETAIN guideline, which explicitly states that the choice of a variety of English in articles without strong ties to any national variety of English is up to the first contributor and that "[a]n article should not be... renamed simply to switch from one valid use of English to another". I don't see how maintaining consistency of titles of pages covering the last names is grounds for overriding that. The only "consistency" ENGVAR addresses is the consistency within articles, not between them.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 21, 2014; 18:06 (UTC)
Support, using "(surname)" is our common practice. bd2412 T 18:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And WP:RETAIN is not?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 21, 2014; 19:08 (UTC)
Do you have any evidence that that there are any strong nationalist ties regarding the term last name. I may be wrong but I don't ever recall anything like that being the case.--67.68.22.129 (talk) 01:46, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are no strong national~~ist~~ ties in play here. And if you read ENGVAR in its entirety, you'll see that for subjects without strong national ties (like this one) it is the variety chosen by the first contributor that is to be retained.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2014; 11:54 (UTC)

WP:RETAIN is inapplicable to the discussion at hand, which is about Wikipedia-wide consistency among titles. bd2412 T 02:51, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If WP:RETAIN were indeed about "Wikipedia-wide consistency among titles", you'd be contradicting yourself in your own statement :) But it's not even about that, so you do understand how puzzling your comment looks? The only time consistency is mentioned in that guideline is in the section discussing consistency within articles, and that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2014; 11:54 (UTC)
That is incorrect. WP:CRITERIA, which outlines the five criteria to be followed in titling articles, states as one of these criteria: "Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) in the box of Topic-specific conventions on article titles". Moving a page to a title that imparts such consistency on the title is therefore favored by article title policy, to which WP:RETAIN is inapplicable. bd2412 T 12:51, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, so you meant WP:CRITERIA and not WP:RETAIN in your original comment? That makes more sense. So, basically, your argument (and, it seems, the overall consensus) is that it is perfectly OK to force people use a variety of English they are not comfortable with whenever consistency of article titles is on the line. Got it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2014; 13:48 (UTC)
Compare All pages with titles containing (surname) with All pages with titles containing (last name). There are thousands of articles on surnames with "surname" in the title, including many in Slavic languages (Boyko (surname), Khmelnytskyi (surname), Polishchuk (surname), Tchaikovsky (surname), Yushchenko (surname)). There is exactly one surname article in all of Wikipedia with "last name" in the title. This reflects the will of the community to exercise consistency on this point, and the fact that apparently, there is no one else who is "not comfortable" with the use of the term "surname". bd2412 T 14:05, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
People who are not comfortable with using a certain variety of English tend to simply not use that variety. For obvious reasons, I can't link to a Category of "articles not created because someone didn't want to submit to a mandatory use of a term in a variety of English they are not comfortable using". Do note that despite being the creator of the page I did not cast an "oppose" !vote here, so there's really no need of convincing me. I am simply avert to coercion where coercion is easily avoided with otherwise no ill effects, as is the case here.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2014; 14:18 (UTC)
I don't see any evidence of people of any background being uncomfortable with the use of the word "surname". For example, Polishchuk (surname) was created at that title by User:Altenmann, a Russian language speaker; Khmelnytskyi (surname) was created by Ukranian editor User:Aleksandr Grigoryev. bd2412 T 14:24, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How does pointing out editors comfortable with a particular variety prove that "no one else" is uncomfortable with it? Heck, if you dig in my article creation log, you are bound to find a few pages I created with "(surname)" in the title. Does it mean I'm happy about having to use it? Not really. Does it mean that I've never forgone an opportunity to create other articles just because I didn't want to use "surname"? Make a guess. So next time you find yourself in need of this kind of evidence, feel free to use me as an example. Does all this make me weird, unusual, and nitpicky? Perhaps. But I am what I am. And am I the only one having this problem? I seriously doubt it. That said, were it not for this opportunity, you would have probably never even known that this kind of discomfort even exists. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2014; 15:14 (UTC)
I stand by the proposition that I find no evidence of any editor other than yourself who considers this to be an issue at all. In all of Wikipedia, where thousands of disputes on article content and formatting and usage are aired daily, where has such a complaint as this one ever been raised before? bd2412 T 15:29, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There's always that first time when someone finds a problem and raises it. To suggest that all possible problems have already been raised before is a preposterous statement. And for the record, I'm not considering this article to be that big of a deal (hence the lack of my "oppose" !vote). What concerns me is that we are publicly proclaiming a respect for all varieties of English only to sweep it all under the table when not practicing such a respect becomes more convenient. I am, by the way, yet to see any explanations of how leaving this page where it is now is going to create any kind of problems. That we must blindly enforce consistency come hell of high water is not much of an argument...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2014; 16:19 (UTC)
Consistency is a title criteria (for the obvious reason that it makes the entire encyclopedia more professional if articles are not running off with inconsistent usages for the same purpose). That by itself is reason enough to conform a title to the criteria. Of course it could also be argued that reference to a "last" name has ambiguity issues. For example, what is the "last" name in Jiang Zemin? His family name is Jiang, and his given name is Zemin; our article at Jiang (surname) could not appropriately be titled "Jiang (last name)" because most people who have that surname have it first, not last. If Maksim Mikhailovsky plays a game in Beijing, they might locally report him as being "Mikhailovsky Maksim". What is his "last" name then? What is the "last" name of Cat Stevens. He was born "Steven Demetre Georgiou" so that was the "first" name that he had, later changed it to "Cat Stevens", and later still to "Yusuf Islam". One could say that his "last" name chronologically is "Yusuf Islam". Also, I have not said that "all possible problems have already been raised"; but the big ones have been, and we have many thousands of "surname" pages made and edited by many thousands of editors with none identifying the use of "surname" as a problem. bd2412 T 17:16, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We are "running off with inconsistent usage for the same purpose" all the time, in no small part because of WP:ENGVAR. If an article about one of the cities in Slovenia uses Commonwealth English and another article about a different city in Slovenia uses American English, no one ever sees that as a problem. But extend this line of thinking to article titles, and oh no, it's bad. Never mind that no one can explain why it's so bad or what the harm really is.
Regarding your "family name" examples, those are all good, valid points. And had this RM been held with regards to Jiang Zemin, Cat Stevens, or other person with similar concerns about their names, I would have conceded immediately. When pinpointing which name is the "last" one presents a problem, then moving the article to a "(surname)", or a "(family name)", or any other valid variant is done for clear, good reasons. It is not done just to switch from one variety of English to another. There are no such clear, good reasons here. So far the only message here is "to hell with WP:RETAIN; let's enforce consistency, because... consistency!".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2014; 17:57 (UTC)

Support less ambiguous; consistent with other articles. What dialects of English do not use "surname"? (non-English languages do not matter, since this is English Wikipedia, so disambiguation is concerned with the English language) -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 04:06, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one valid use of English to another (from WP:RETAIN). "Last name" is valid English.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2014; 11:54 (UTC)
Did you read what I wrote? What variety of English does not use "surname"? If you can't answer that question, then you can't use RETAIN, because no variety of English exists with that condition. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 04:22, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason not to move the article and I, too, wonder which varieties of English do not use "surname". From an OR perspective, 65.94.169.222's concern about ambiguity has been borne out by experience. As noted above, non-native speakers (who I agree should not determine usage) from countries where the given name comes last (e.g. East Asia) often reply with their given name when prompted for their "last name"; it is last after all. The same goes for "family name": one native speaker gave me her maiden name when prompted for a family name; it was the name of her family though not her surname. And with some West and Central Africans, for example, the surname (nom) is not what we would call a "family name", i.e. not the surname of the mother or father. "Surname" is more concise and avoids these issues, so why not? — AjaxSmack 01:08, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support, there's global consensus that "(surname)" is the disambiguation marker, so a rejection of this normalization per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA would have to be based on a much clearer argument. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:37, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support: consistency with similar article titles per Wikipedia:Article titles. DrKiernan (talk) 20:12, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I am not aware of any variety of English that does not use surname and unless someone can prove that is actually the case the only arguement presented so far against this move, WP:ENGVAR, does not apply.--67.68.22.129 (talk) 06:38, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.