Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)

Page move of interest

At Talk:Catherine Ashton#Requested move 2, there is discussion potentially of interest to contributors to this naming convention. -Rrius (talk) 02:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I think this discussion on Catherine Ashton raises a number of problems with the existing naming convention:-

1. It artificially distinguishes between former British PMs and other senior politicians who have been given a title after retirement.

2. It also artificially distinguishes between British politicians who have been given a hereditary peerage and a life peerage.

3. It sets an unduly high threshhold, that a peer has to be exclusively known by their ordinary name (I think you can sometimes get the odd mention of "Lady Thatcher" or "Baroness Thatcher", but she is still usually known as Margaret Thatcher). PatGallacher (talk) 19:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it should just say "better known". That surely represents not only common sense, but actual practice as well.--Kotniski (talk) 12:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Roy Jenkins is a good precedent. Deb (talk) 13:12, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've generally tidied up that whole section, and addressed the points raised here (some of the wording might need to be tweaked slightly, though as far as I'm aware it describes actual practice pretty well).--Kotniski (talk) 07:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Better known is ill-advised before the nineteenth century. Each of the Dukes of Northumberland is best known as Northumberland, but we can't use that for reasons of disambiguation; we want to restrict this to the case where a peer (like Jenkins or Attlee or Thatcher) is normally known by something other than his title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to refine this further, and taken things a step further, that in these cases the ordinary name should normally be used, unless the peerage title would be useful for disambiguation, and of course ultimately each case shoudl be decided on its merits. PatGallacher (talk) 16:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

We used to have an exception for Prime Ministers (only). My view is that for modern politicians (who are given a life peerage at the end of their career) and hereditary peers who decline to use theri title, we should not worry about the use of a "common" name, rather than their official highest title achieved, as long as a redirect using the WP-MOS style of title also exists. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Wilhelm I and II - the odd men out

Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II stand out as being the only German monarchs in the list of German monarchs that do not follow the usual English (and Wiki) convention of using English names. They were both moved from "William..." in Jul 2008, but a recent suggestion to move Wilhelm I back has met with a degree of reticence and the usual WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT comments. It seems a no brainer to me - but what do others think? --Bermicourt (talk) 19:58, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Whatever approach we adopt, we need to disambiguate Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Frederick III, German Emperor. PatGallacher (talk) 21:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I support the move to William I, German Emperor, both as consistency and as usage. It may be that his grandson is sufficiently often called Wilhelm since the barrage of WWI propaganda that we must leave him as an exceptional case; the usage before the war is shown in Saki's When William Came. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

@Septentrionalis. I am no expert on that period, but the argument sounds logical enough. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:53, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

"Kaiser Wilhelm" is how I remember learning about him. Since we're anglicizing the Kaiser anyway, why not the Wilhelm? Or perhaps more to the point, he seems to be William slightly more often than Wilhelm on Google Scholar, so if we're moving Wilhelm I to William, there's every reason (both consistency and usage) to move Wilhelm II as well.--Kotniski (talk) 07:28, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

But do we really want to go back to pre-war usage? Deb (talk) 11:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm having no problem finding recent references to him as "William II" on Google Scholar. Clearly either name is perfectly acceptable in terms of commonness, so we should go with whatever's consistent with what we decide to call his grandfather.--Kotniski (talk) 11:53, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

As a matter of interest, what are you searching on? I don't seem to be getting anything relevant back. Deb (talk) 12:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

"william II" german emperor (published since 1990, for example)--Kotniski (talk) 12:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

For more, see Talk:Wilhelm I, German Emperor#Proposed move to William I, German Emperor. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Retired politicians

It has been claimed that a recent change was made without discussion, this is simply not the case, if you read earlier I flagged this up as an problem before another user made the change. As I said, saying that peers have to be "exclusively" known by their ordinary name before we have to use it raises too high a standard. I don't think the examples quoted are exclusively known by their ordinary name. Doing a google search, there are 70 400 hits for "Baroness Thatcher", 76 900 for "Lady Thatcher", searches for "Earl of Avon" and "Lord Avon" pick up some mentions of Anthony Eden. Drawing a fundamental distinction between household names like Thatcher and less well known politicians is a quagmire. See Talk:Catherine Ashton and Talk:Tommy McAvoy, Baron McAvoy. PatGallacher (talk) 19:48, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

No, it isn't. Ashton and McAvoy are worlds different from Margaret Thatcher. The standard is actually quite easy: is the person so much better known by their "normal" name that it would be surprising for their article to be anywhere else. Margaret Thatcher? Absolutely. Harold Wilson? Absolutely. William Whitelaw? Not so much. Tommy McAvoy? Not so much. Your problem is that you seem to put religious faith in Google counts, which we should all know are flawed, especially with something like this where there are so many overlapping terms. -Rrius (talk) 20:03, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

True. Google counts are not close to being conclusive. This comes down to whether the person is well known to the general public. McAvoy is not. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:11, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

As far as politicians go, if they haven't held one of the Great Offices of State and aren't named Lembit Opik or Boris Johnson, they probably aren't well known enough to reach that surprise threshold. -Rrius (talk) 20:13, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

When not to use a peer's title

The change made by a small group of editors above makes no sense. A naming convention is an explicit exception to WP:COMMONNAME. Their version, though, says that a peerage shouldn't be in the title when a person is primarily known without it. In other words, the exception to COMMONNAME is to use NAME, TITLE unless NAME is the common name. The whole point of the naming convention is to have consistency in the use of peerage titles. The amended version promotes inconsistency. Who ends up with their peerage in the title and who doesn't will be reliant on the current Google hit counts, which will generally favour the person pre-peerage name. In the end, whether intended or not, the result is a half-assed repeal of the naming convention with respect to nobles. Repealing altogether would be better than trying to work with the "primarily" version. -Rrius (talk) 19:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Not really - the convention tells us how to form article titles when we want to use the peerage name as the article title. Of course any part that tells us we have to use that name (as opposed to another name by which the person is best known) ought to be repealed.--Kotniski (talk) 05:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Why ought? This guideline, like the policy it implements, is descriptive: our title discussions value a number of things, of which recognizability - produced by using a common name - is only one. When, as here, subjects have a number of common names, recognizability is a marginal consideration in choosing among them.

Now, there are normative requirements in our policies - but their requirements tend to be such things as that disruptive editors who make unfounded demands ought to be banned. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

So we seem to agree that the normative requirements should be removed from this guideline?--Kotniski (talk) 16:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

No. There are no normative requirements in this guideline. There are conventions, phrased in the imperative rather than the subjunctive for readability. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

British peers

Do British peers need to be "primarily" or "exclusively" known by their ordinary name for us to use this as their article title? PatGallacher (talk) 20:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Exclusively. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:32, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Bertrand Russell, Anthony Eden, Margaret Thatcher. So, perhaps, not exclusively. (I'm not sure it would be possible for a peer to be known exclusively by their ordinary name in any case.)--FormerIP (talk) 23:02, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Utterly ridiculous question. Of course not "exclusively" - no-one is known "exclusively" as anything. I can hardly believe we even need to discuss this.--Kotniski (talk) 05:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

A more pertinent question should be: "primarily" or simply "better"? Is there any reason to prefer peerage titles to common names when the common names are somewhat (but not overwhelmingly) better known? I would say not, and the result at Catherine Ashton would seem to bear that out.--Kotniski (talk) 05:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME works well for ordinary celebrities like Elton John, Madonna, etc, but less well for peers, especially if we're looking for consistency. There are 2 ways round this: 1. Always use the highest title or 2. Use titles for hereditary peers, since they have been titled since birth, but ordinary names for life peers who are usually ennobled towards the end of their careers. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:35, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a myth that common names don't work for peers and royals. Why not call Lord Palmerston and Queen Victoria by the names everyone recognizes them by, and for which they are clearly primary topics? This would cause no problem at all - and "consistency" cuts both ways: it's not consistent to call most people by the names they are well known by, with appropriate disambiguation where necessary, but to adopt a totally different approach to one set of people (and not even a consistent approach within that set: look at the various arbitrary rules we have in this guideline, and the stupid titles that actually sometimes end up getting used because of blind conformance to those rules).--Kotniski (talk) 08:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If you want to do that, you should at least be straightforward enough to propose elimination of the naming convention rather than proposing that an exception swallow the whole. -Rrius (talk) 22:10, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If the common name is not the titled name we shouldn't be using the titled name. This is how it always should have been. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

This arose in relation to a discussion at Tommy McAvoy, Baron McAvoy. The discussions could be heading in opposite directions. PatGallacher (talk) 11:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

@Kotniski. If common names worked well for peers and royals, we wouldn't be having this debate; it's reality not myth. You have chosen 2 examples that neatly support your argument, but I could quote numerous others that don't. And having a rule for certain groups of people is not inconsistent as long as its logical. The 'common name' approach simply leads to a different kind of inconsistency. We need to decide which makes more sense based on what authoritative sources say, not on personal opinion.

@Chris Cunningham. But where's the logic?

@PatGallacher. Your proposal for Tommy McAvoy would be in line with my option 2 i.e. life peers get called by their ordinary name (but hereditary peers get the title).

General comment. If you think this is complicated, wait till we discuss the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg where several could exist simultaneously and sometimes with the same first name! --Bermicourt (talk) 11:27, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The logic is that this is the naming convention used by practically every other part of the project. That we treat British peers differently is an anomaly and a historical mistake. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

@Bermicourt - "if common names worked well we wouldn't be having this debate" - wrong way round I'm afraid, it's the continual problems with the present system that mean we keep having this type of debate. And our system is not based on what authoritative sources say, or logic, it really is just the personal opinion of a few people who wrote it down many years ago and doggedly try to impose their self-created rules on other editors (including by move warring, I've just noticed). And if the present system works well with complex lines of dukes and so on, then that's great, but we mustn't (or shouldn't) make the false deduction that what works well in many cases must work well in all cases. Anyway, to return to substantial matters, I'd support the "personal names for life peers" suggestion as a first approximation to something sensible (particularly since the titles we use for people who are well known as peers are usually not the names under which they are well known as peers, so there doesn't seem much point in using them even if they are better known as "Lord..." than by their personal name).--Kotniski (talk) 13:13, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Let us get rid of the dogmatic falsehoods which certain unhelpful editors have brought here:

• There is no naming convention used by almost all other areas of this project. There is a policy, WP:AT, which sets five goals which it would be desirable for all naming conventions to meet; since they are (driven to extremes) incompatible with each other, naming conventions cannot entirely do this.
• If there were such a convention, it would not be use the most common name, whatever other costs that imposes. That is not true of any biographical articles, including these: Faraday is most commonly called Faraday, not Michael Faraday; Jefferson is most commonly called Jefferson, not Thomas Jefferson.
  • Please don't waste time with the claim that this is diambiguation; Faraday is the only Faraday notable enough to have an article; Jefferson is primary usage.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
• We don't use surnames alone because using full names is generally needed for disambiguation, and is more encyclopedic. So here; William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire is his full name, and all of it - including the numeral - is needed for disambiguation from his successors; but his most common name is Duke of Devonshire. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Which is one of the majority of cases where the convention works well. It's when people try to generalize such patterns to all cases, and produce thoroughly unrecognizable titles in the process, that the problems arise. --Kotniski (talk) 16:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

That's called consistency; it is one of the goals supported by policy. The distance to which it should be followed is the point of this conversation - when not interrupted by those who oppose the policy itself, which should be discussed on its own talkpage, preferably not in the spirit of Robespierre reorganizing France. This guideline, which chooses among common names, provides no ground for pushing to the point of unrecognizability. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:17, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Huh? This is the guideline that explicitly condones (by including as examples) the uncommon, barely recognizable titles we give to articles on Queen Victoria, Lord Palmerston et al. --Kotniski (talk) 17:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any difficulty recognizing who Victoria of the United Kingdom is? If so (there's always one), does anybody else? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I do. Empress Frederick is also a Victoria of the United Kingdom, and there are other (less notable) ones too. But, as has been said before, this is only a problem on articles where the monarch does not have a numeral. DrKiernan (talk) 18:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps not only, but yes, that's the main category that we need to do something about. Anyway, we're supposed to be talking about peers here - surely even PMA will admit that Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston is unrecognizable to much of its potential audience (i.e. people who would recognize him if we titled his article Lord Palmerston)?--Kotniski (talk) 18:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Lord Palmerston is of course ambiguous; most sources don't have to deal with disambiguation from his father and grandfather. Efforts have been made to go this direction; there is no consensus (and I supported it) even to move the article on Lord Byron to Lord Byron; this is not what we actually do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually I rather feel that Lord Byron is due a revisiting, what with the retirement of the particular, ummm, "dogmatist" primarily responsible for holding that up the last time. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:37, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

And if a move proves to have consensus, that would be evidence to tweak the sentence originally under consideration. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:41, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the key phrase there is "driven to extremes". Straw men about absurdist interpretations on WP:COMMONNAME as it applies to michael Faraday are not arguments worth considering. The nobility guidelines will gradually be chipped away until they resemble the community's wider norms. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

They do resemble the community's "wider norms" - if that means what the community actually does, not the drastic oversimpilification that this handful of dogmatists would like to force us all into. This is the wrong page on which to do that too; this page simply reports the actual practice of article naming. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:13, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If you want to characterise "using the general guidelines and not a sub-guideline questioned on a daily basis" as a "drastic oversimplification" then I can't stop you; it's not really convincing, though, is it? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:37, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

What general guideline? WP:AT (which is not a guideline) is perfectly compatible with this guideline - it was written to be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:41, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Except that most people consider WP:COMMONNAME to have primacy. As it does. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME is often the only issue is a title discussion; but that's not the same thing. Do you have any evidence of what "most people think"? WP:AT doe not support this claim. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:02, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME is the first section on WP:AT, and states "articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article". That we're even having this discussion (and not for the first time) suggests that there's fairly widespread belief that the common name is appropriate for most articles. I'm not sure how you'd go about "proving" it though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:49, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

No, it isn't first; the first one says Most articles will have a simple and obvious title that satisfies most or all of these ideal criteria. If so, use it, as a straightforward choice. - and that is the normal situation WP:COMMONNAME refers to. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:42, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought Wikipedia was supposed to follow the conventions based on credible sources, not invent its own original norms. So far we have lots of opinions and no sources. I include myself, but then I was only making suggestions for others more expert to consider using their knowledge of the history books they were referring to! --Bermicourt (talk) 19:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You mean like the Complete Peerage, which we follow quite slavishly on this subject? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:21, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Exactly right, although it doesn't cover today's peers, but then most of them are cronies life peers anyway, for which we seem to have some consensus that we use their ordinary name. BTW the external link at Complete Peerage doesn't work so I've hidden it for now. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:41, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

There is a Volume XIV, which covers life peers up to 1994. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Cool. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

A few thoughts on the original question (whether the standard for omitting the peerage title should be that the person is "primarily" or "exclusively" known without it) and related issues:

• "Exclusively" is an impossibly high standard: there is no peer who is never referred to by title.
• "Primarily" is difficult to determine and is, in my opinion, too low a standard. Consistency should indeed be a goal of this convention, except where it is clearly contrary to common sense.
• Might "significantly better known" be a workable compromise?
• Per any standard short of "exclusively", Lord Palmerston's article should probably be named thus—and disambiguation should not really be an issue, since that is already a redirect and the article has a dab link to Viscount Palmerston.
• Likewise for Lord Byron.
• Having different conventions for hereditary and life peers strikes me as artificial and unnecessary, though it may well be the case that life peers will be more likely to meet the standard for omitting the peerage title.

Alkari (?), 23 June 2010, 21:47 UTC

"Exclusively" was never meant or understood literally. Even the examples given for the standard are occasionally referred to as "Lord/Lady/Baroness X". I'm not sure if "significantly better known" really captures that or has much meaning itself (I really have no idea where to place it or how to apply it), and I doubt any adverb is going to; perhaps "overwhelmingly" (which we use for epithets such as "the Great" and excludes even "the Lionheart") would do it. Perhaps what we should do is draft a full sentence. I would propose something along the lines I wrote above (and which was the spirit of the original): "This convention should be followed unless the person is so well known by their former name, or some other name, that it would be surprising for it to be elsewhere." -Rrius (talk) 22:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

That would help; except that as we've seen, things that surprise ordinary people ("Victoria of the United Kingdom") don't surprise all stalwarts of Wikipedia (who have had their mindsets so altered as to think that such names are perfectly normal). --Kotniski (talk) 04:33, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that the "of the United Kingdom" naming convention is a nonsense. But, I don't think that is a question of surprise. The problem there is that some editors are just resistant to change. I'm not sure what your preferred solution is, but mine is "Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom" (perhaps with the format "Elizabeth II" where disambiguation isn't needed); after all, that mirrors how we treat nobles. To go just one step further afield before returning to the matter at hand, I think we need to find a way to get all the people who oppose the current standard to try to work out a single proposal because it seems that most of the times we lose, there are more people who oppose the status quo than support it, but no single approach gets enough support to surpass it.

Anyway, I think borrowing the surprise standard would give us a predictable, workable standard strong enough to maintain a the level of consistency the desire for which led to the adoption of the naming convention way back when. I believe that under the standard, John Prescott is the only one of the new peers that would be left at a former name. (I don't have them all committed to memory, so I could be missing someone.) People like Tom, Lord McAvoy are just not very high-profile. Frankly, he's not likely even to be searched for unless he's in some scandal, in which case it would probably be a search for "Lord McAvoy". -Rrius (talk) 05:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that being low-profile is an excuse for our using an uncommon name (it just means that fewer people will care, so those who go around enforcing the convention will usually be able to do so unopposed). If we think that "Lord McAvoy" is going to be his common name, then surely it's that that should be used, not the mouthful that's actually being proposed? (But is there really any reason to assume that this man will be any more prominent as a lord than he was as a commoner?) What do you think about the proposal that the standard for life peers should be personal name alone? That would be very consistent - both with the way we treat other holders of non-hereditary titles (knighthoods and so on), and with those quite numerous high-profile ennobled politicians where we are bound to use the personal name anyway. --Kotniski (talk) 06:43, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not an excuse, it's a justification. The proposal of using former names for life peers is a terrible one because most peers who are only known by their peerages. What's more, it would be wholly inconsistent with how we treat other nobles. -Rrius (talk) 11:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

An observation: princes who become kings are likely to be more notable in their new rank; politicians who become peers regularly sink into obscurity. AJRG (talk) 11:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's my intuitive feeling too (though obviously there are exceptions). Many peers are not known only by their peerages - that may apply to hereditary peers who are not notable for much else; but for life peers (and hereditary peers who ascend to the peerage after having done notable things) it tends to be the other way round. Whichever way we do it it's going to be consistent with something and inconsistent with something else, so consistency isn't much of an argument here. (It also needs to be emphasized that even when people are known by their "peerage titles", the names they actually are known by - like "Lord X" - often differ significantly from the names we give to their articles.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The current format is [Forename] [Surname], [Title]. By using that format, you lose absolutely nothing for people searching for [Forename] [Surname]. As it's all still there, it's really a built in compromise. Some one searching for if someone searches for "John Gummer" and finds "John Gummer, Baron Deben", they'll think, "Ah, here we are." If they search for "Lord Deben" and get "John Gummer", many will see the title and hit the back button to try again. I don't see the value in removing the titles. -Rrius (talk) 12:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's a point, but generally speaking Wikipedia avoids unnecessary clutter in its article titles - we don't do Gdańsk/Danzig, we pick a name and use it (and disambiguate it if necessary - using a description rather than an alternative name - John Gummer (politician) would be the Wikipedia style if he weren't the primary topic for that name, and would probably be more useful in practice than including his little-known baronial title). People won't necessarily think "here we are" on alighting at "John Gummer, Baron Deben" - they may well think (particularly if they know how Wikipedia does things): "huh, this can't be the best-known John Gummer, since it's been disambiguated."--Kotniski (talk) 15:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually he's better known as John Selwyn Gummer. :-) Deb (talk) 11:48, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought that too.--Kotniski (talk) 14:57, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems to vary - I get the impression he used the longer version of his name less and less as time went on, but his profile took a nosedive for unrelated reasons so people may not have noticed. Timrollpickering (talk) 15:22, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Please do remember that we are dealing with a millennium of peers, most of whom have articles, and almost all of whom are notable enough to have articles (as national legislators, if nothing else); dealing with them on the basis of the last half-century, since creation of hereditary peerages became obsolescent, is precipitate. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think we're talking mainly about life peers here (and the few hereditary peers who are very well known as something else than their official title). I don't see anyone proposing to rename all the millennium's worth of peers, most of whom are perfectly acceptably titled as they are. --Kotniski (talk) 16:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

The disambiguation question

The situation with disambiguation is illustrated with Michael Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn (mentioned in the guideline). It is asserted that adding the baronial title is useful for disambiguation. But is it? For me (and let's assume for now that he isn't the primary topic for Michael Martin), far more useful would be something like Michael Martin (Commons speaker). That would be instantly understandable to a far greater number of readers; wouldn't be any less concise; and overall not any less "consistent" (what you lose in consistency with other barons, you gain in consistency with other Michael Martins). I see the matter was raised on the article talk page without any views being expressed (except that of the raiser) - what do people here think?--Kotniski (talk) 05:51, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure our majority US (and other) friends would agree; AFAIK they don't have 'commons speakers' and may not recognise the term. On the other hand a lordly title is both recognisable and compatible with historic nobility naming. But, like you I still don't particularly like the concept of a small minority of life peers being named as if they were full hereditary peers - that could be confusing. How about a convention that says: life peers go under their ordinary name; if disambiguation is needed we add the title in brackets e.g. Michael Martin (baron) or Michael Martin (life peer), or even Michael Martin, Bart.? . Disambiguators, almost by their nature will be at variance with our conventions, but it helps if the disambiguators themselves are standardised. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I think you miss the point (perhaps because I failed to make it) - Martin is not well-known as a baron, life peer or whatever, he's known to the world (well, to Britain - to other countries I presume he's not known at all) as the ex-speaker of the Commons. - there's a clear advantage to readers if we do it that way.--Kotniski (talk) 07:03, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

"We disambiguate titles with reference to the things people are most notable for" - where does Wikipedia state that? I thought we disambiguated people by their main profession or highest status. Otherwise we might have Edmund Hillary (first man to climb Everest)!  ;) --Bermicourt (talk) 07:18, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

And wasn't "Commons speaker" Martin's main profession? (the one he was best known for?) I mean, "(politician)" would still be more helpful than "Baron" or whatever, but then the Commons speaker is supposed to be apolitical... --Kotniski (talk) 08:18, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, WP:Naming conventions (people)#Disambiguation says: "The disambiguator is usually a noun indicating what the person is noted for being." --Kotniski (talk) 08:23, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(royalty_and_nobility)#British_nobility - Kittybrewster ☎ 09:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's the section that contains the principle I'm questioning. (Specifically the bit which actually uses this title as an example.)--Kotniski (talk) 10:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Peerage_and_Baronetage#Question_about_naming_conventions - Kittybrewster ☎ 10:51, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that link (I've mentioned this discussion there), but I don't see it has anything to do with the question I'm asking here.--Kotniski (talk) 11:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

We do need to disambiguate Michael Martin from Micheál Martin, the current Irish foreign minister. Other politicians where this may be an issue are Peter Walker, Baron Walker of Worcester and George Thomas, 1st Viscount Tonypandy, where at present they are not the primary meaning of these names, although to complicate matters further the latter was a hereditary title. PatGallacher (talk) 11:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

(Isn't the different spelling sufficient differentation for Michael and Micheál Martin?) But I would suggest that all these titles would work better for normal readers (i.e. not peerage buffs) if a normal disambiguation tag were used instead of the peerage. (Well, I feel less strongly about George Thomas, but that might be because I happen to remember what title he adopted.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:26, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The two spellings make it possible to have distinct articles, but it's not desirable to have two articles a typo apart if it can be readily avoided, especially since Micheal Martin is, quite properly, a redirect to the foreign minister. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:10, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I sense a consensus developing in favour of the current guideline, using "primarily". I think it is recognised that "exclusively" was unworkable. The use of "surprising" in this guideline raises problems e.g. if we did have an article at "Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher" I don't think most people would be particularly surprised, they might just think "I suppose that's what reference works do, sometimes use long-winded formal titles". Whether people are surprised by something can be very subjective, but I think "surprisingly" was meant to cover cases like Alfred the Great where calling him e.g. "Alfred of England" or "Alfred of Wessex" could surprise some people who would wonder who this was. (Also we use cognomens for some early monarchs because it's open to dispute where they were monarch of.)

If the issue is using people's common names, then we should bear in mind that with most of these people, when their title is used, they will usually be referred to as "Lord X" even though their formal title, which some people want to use in the article title, is "Baron X". (Baroness Thatcher is an interesting exception.)

Some people at the Tommy McAvoy discussion have argued that we should draw a distinction between people like Thatcher who everybody has heard of and McAvoy who are not so well known. This is introducing an unnecessary complication into what is already a complicated issue. Reference works which refer to e.g. McAvoy's 5 general election victories or his time as a government whip will still refer to him by his ordinary name. Where do we draw the line? Bertrand Russell and Anthony Eden were household names in their own time, but not so now.

Use of peerage titles as a disambiguator as an exception was put in I think because some people were being cautious about the issue of ditching peerage titles at that stage, but it merits discussion. PatGallacher (talk) 13:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

You may not be allowing for the rest of the English-speaking world. Russell and Eden are household names for anyone interested in history or philosophy; I've never heard of Martin until this conversation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

A legitimate point, but also a good example of the problems deciding where to draw the line. Also, you certainly can't have an article "Michael Martin, Bart.", since this is an abbreviation of baronet, not baron. PatGallacher (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't really see what the point is - if someone doesn't know who Martin is, then he's not going to recognize him under any name we decide to give him (so to the extent it matters at all for such readers, we're probably still better off disambiguating him with reference to what he's notable for, so that the non-UK reader will at least learn that much - and won't be misled into thinking that the weird double name is how he's commonly referred to).--Kotniski (talk) 20:45, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a misunderstanding of the point of disambiguation. It's a necessary evil to deal with the fact that the encyclopedia requires unique titles for umpty-gazillion articles, not a tool for education. If there's a way of disambiguating people that makes use of a name legitimately used outside of Wikipedia, that's generally preferable to making people guess at whatever clever shorthand we've invented. Choess (talk) 21:31, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

All right, forget what I said about "at least learn that much" - my argument still stands up without it. And no, we don't use a little recognized alternative name in preference to recognized name + disambiguator - that's what WP:Naming conventions (people) has always made clear. "X (Y)" is not "clever shorthand" - it's instantly understandable, more so than "John Smith, Baron Smith" (and I'm sure some of these double forms are never actually used in the real world.--Kotniski (talk) 21:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

A slightly different thought about newly created peers (and life peers generally)

A rule that our naming convention should follow common usage clearly doesn't work well in the case of newly created peers - nearly all of them will have had at least some press coverage before elevation (even if they weren't particularly famous before) and none of that coverage, obviously, will refer to them as "Lord X", even if it is likely that much or most coverage going forward is likely to do so. It strikes me as silly and unproductive for us to weight old stories equally with new, on this question.

I believe that our past practice, stated quite broadly (and stated in terms of what has happened, rather than what the letter of guidelines and policy may have said) is that we title these articles using the title, except when there is some very good reason not to do so. Catherine Ashton might well be such an example (though I'm not firmly convinced).

I think that any solution which tempts us to settle a debate by counting hits in google is generally not going to be a good one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:22, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

This raises the question of what is "a very good reason" in this context. Is there a very good reason why we should not have an article with the title "Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher"? PatGallacher (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

No, the solution is not to count hits in Google, but to use experience and common sense - we know (a) that most life peers did most of what they were notable for before they got their peerage, and are therefore likely to be known best by the name they had then (in fact the same principle applies to hereditary peers who happened to do their famous stuff before they were elevated, and the guideline has long recognized that fact); (b) that even if they do happen to become better known by their peerage title, it will usually be as "Lord X" rather than "Baron X" etc. (for some reason "Baroness" seems to be more commonly used alongside "Lady"), so these titles with "Baron" don't help any. The fair point has been made that the long titles do contain the personal names, and therefore are quite recognizable even to people who have no idea what the title was but know the personal names; however, it's quite contrary to Wikipedia's normal practice to stuff article titles with extraneous information and redundant disambiguators (and for good reason), and as observed most recently, if disambiguation really is required, then the peerage title will often be a rubbish way of doing it (a normal parenthetical disambiguator will be understood and recognized by far more readers). So on the whole, I would say there's every reason to make a clear split between life peers and hereditary peers (oh, life peers don't suffer from the repetition of names/titles that hereditary peers do); treat hereditary peers more or less as we already do, but treat life peers as we treat knights and other lesser honour-holders, and prefer the personal name alone unless they're better known as something else - in which case use that something else.--Kotniski (talk) 21:00, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, no, there is no very good reason why we should not. I think we should, but it isn't up to me. But I do think past practice has been that if it isn't at "Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher" then there should be a good reason for it. Arguably, a study of google news results (which I just did), shows that even today she is referred to much more often as simply "Margaret Thatcher" rather than "Lady Thatcher" or "Baroness Thatcher". That doesn't hold true for, as an example, Lord Mandelson, who is referred to about equally often (as far as my limited study showed) as Peter Mandelson versus Lord Mandelson or Baron Mandelson. So, for a test case, we might say that Margaret Thatcher is not very much known by her title, whereas Lord Mandelson is. However, I should add for the sake of completeness, this type of "google counting" analysis is what I think we should generally try to avoid if at all possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I think I agree with you, except I think that the default should be the other way round - not "use the double form unless there's a good reason not to" but "use the personal name alone unless there's a good reason not to" (for reasons explained at great length and little clarity above).--Kotniski (talk) 21:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Well I agree with Jimbo and not with Kotniski. Jimbo's position is the default we have arrived at after years of discussing this. No good reason to change it. Indeed it is only Kotniski who is arguing here that we do so. Kittybrewster ☎ 21:12, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

A rather bizarre conclusion - perhaps you could counter my arguments instead of pretending they don't exist (and that the majority of other commenting editors who also support change also don't exist)?--Kotniski (talk) 21:21, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't really get what your argument is, though. When people become peers, their name actually changes - in passports, for example. "Titles of nobility are part of a person's name" says the UK passport office. For us to use a name other than what someone's name actually is, surely requires a justification, not the other way around.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:11, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

We are not usually concerned with what someone's name "actually is", but what people (reliable sources) call them. There are countless examples of this (well, since most people have middle names that we msotly don't use in our titles, presumably the majority of articles on people are examples).--Kotniski (talk) 10:34, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we concern ourselves with both, actually. When a woman gets married and changes her name, we change her name, and we don't bother waiting for google counts to shift. And, there can be exceptions to this particularly for very famous woman (although many of them do not change their names upon marriage). There simply is no absolute rule, nor should there be, that the titles of articles must in all cases follow google counts.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:45, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

+::::::I maintain that your proposal is about effectively deleting the naming convention, not changing it. Your basic argument is that we should use the most common name, but you refuse to acknowledge the fact that separate naming conventions exist as exceptions to that default rule. If you want to propose eliminating the naming convention (whether merely with respect to nobles or also with respect to royals), make a straightforward proposal to do that. -Rrius (talk) 05:34, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Well no, I'm not proposing eliminating it, there are one or two things I'd change if it were up to me, and specifically this is one of them - change the convention for life peers (treat them more like we treat baronets than like we treat hereditary peers).--Kotniski (talk) 06:21, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Armenian monarchs

Is there a reason why some articles in Category:Kings of Armenian Cilicia and Category:Kings of Armenian Cilicia are exceptions to this guideline? Surtsicna (talk) 17:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Not that I can see. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You mean that the word "King" is included in the title? Isn't it because otherwise there would be ambiguity with Princes? (E.g. we have Leo I, King of Armenia and Leo I, Prince of Armenia - leave out the "King" and people won't know which one it is.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If this is indeed the reason, can we mention this situation in the guideline as an exception?--Kotniski (talk) 04:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Exception to what? Kittybrewster ☎ 11:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The principle that we don't include the words "King" and "Queen" in the titles of articles on monarchs.--Kotniski (talk) 12:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

All right, I'm going to do it - if anyone objects, please revert and explain.--Kotniski (talk) 14:52, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Do what? Surtsicna (talk) 14:54, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

What I just did.--Kotniski (talk) 14:56, 25 June 2010 (UTC)