Talk:List of surnames romanized Li

Untitled

top importance: stated as the most common surname on earth --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a proposal to create a precedent that names are not encyclopedic. Articles about names regularly show up on various deletion pages and are summarily deleted. Perhaps - since you've been working on an article about a name, you hold a different opinion that you'd like to express. Please do: Wikipedia:Deletion policy/names and surnames SchmuckyTheCat 17:05, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Chinese Name

Don't you think it's better to put a person's Chinese name in each name written, like Ang Lee, could it be like this?

• • Ang Lee (李安), acclaimed Academy Awards winning film director

A-yao 04:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Lee & Li

I removed this somewhat obscure passage:

There is also another legend that the surname Li is actually a branch from the Lee surname due to a rebellion. There is evidence of a once great war, located in the outlying Lee villages. Weapons and armour can be found lying scattered across the fertile rice fields. Upon these items is the emblem of 'Lee' and 'Li'. The local villagers say that according to folklore, the Li were inevitably crushed by the superior skills and numbers of the Lee.

It somehow makes the assupmtion that Lee's and Li's are separate identities: these are transliterations and nothing more, so when referring to a war between two different Li's, then please use Chinese characters. As it stands here it's pretty nonsensical. JREL (talk) 13:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Fork

This article was forked into Li (李). Please discuss cleanup on that article's talk page. -- Robocoder (t|c) 05:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I see there are two other forks of this article. Therefore, I've converted this article to a dab page. -- Robocoder (t|c) 20:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation Page

Shouldn't this be a disambiguation page? These are distinct names in Chinese, and the fact that English phonetics isn't robust enough to distinguish between them doesn't have anything to do with that.--Isaac R (talk) 22:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• Reasonable question - let's take this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Related article naming discussions

Several pages were resorted and redirect and renamed, so the discussion of that occurred at what is now called Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit") -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 07:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

There has been a sudden batch of controversial merges and moves. See Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit"). In ictu oculi (talk) 09:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The recent discussion at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit") draws the conclusion that we look for other solutions than using Chinese characters in article titles. Li Surname (郦), Li Surname (理) and Li Surname (莉) are recently created non-notable stubs written in poor English by a now-blocked user, whose creation of these articles was deemed disruptive editing, and there is little salvageable material. These should be merged to this umbrella article unless deemed independently notable. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:51, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Also including Li (surname meaning "chestnut") and Li (surname meaning "whetstone") as these were created under the same auspices. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

What is this? As above these moves and merges are already being discussed at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit") together with previous discussion. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That's the wrong place for this merger discussion. I already said that we should centralise here. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

(Further reply at tail of original discussion) Re "already" - for the record the section on the batch of undiscussed merges and moves was opened at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit") 09:25, 3 July 2013‎. User:Robsinden responded by "saying" discuss here Talk:Li (surname) 09:36, 3 July 2013, and then placing merge tags directing here at 09:45, 09:46, 09:47. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

• Close this discussion. Copy the existing discussion over to this page instead. You can use a {{moved discussion to}} / {{moved discussion from}} to indicate that the discussion was transferred. (The Requested Move should also be moved over, to provide context.) -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 10:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

No - this is the proper place for this discussion, as it relates to merging specific articles to this article. The other discussion is mentioned above for reference. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:39, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

• Merge or delete - I tagged the issues - are they even notable topics, even if put together? Without some WP:RS, what's to merge? This just looks like a mess that's worth starting again. Quite some disruption considering all the moot points above, articles should be based on RS, and incubated or userified until then. All seems a bit WP:DEADHORSE. Widefox; talk 12:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment – Agree with Widefox. Given the length of my editing to-do list, this issue is of such a low priority that I should just ignore it, as my mind went numb trying to make sense of the prior RM discussion, but since Rob asked me for further input, I'll add this. Look at Rose (name), a typical English-language dab "article" on "Rose (name meaning a type of flower)". Note from the languages links in the left margin that there are about ten interlanguage links including French and German, but none to Chinese. If someone could point me to a typical English-language name dab "article" that does have a Chinese interlanguage link, I'd like to see it. Also wondering if there are any notable Chinese who have English-language articles, but do not have romanized names, so we are forced to use their Chinese-character names to identify them. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Good point, although WP:OTHERSTUFF applies. Fine to have any articles based on WP:RS, just can't make sense of it without RS. Even WP:SIAs such as Rose (name) need RS as per any list, (else we have a loophole for any random content). Widefox; talk 13:28, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, although I think you're looking at the wider scope for other "Li" surnames, rather than the three specific stub articles in question. We've already established that this is the "umbrella" article for all surnames romanised as "Li", so this discussion is to ascertain whether these three particular articles are notable enough to warrant a page of their own, or merely a mention here. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:39, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

• Merge, largely per User:Widefox and my comments at the other discussion. I had also been essentially arguing against the individual notability of these names, especially in the English Wikipedia. I think that a merge is the best way to go, to create an article discussing the English surname Li, with that article still outlining the potential etymological differences in these identical-in-English surnames.  — TORTOISEWRATH 18:41, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
• Merge stubs with no discrimination against future splits Being the English Wikipedia does not mean we should only deal with an Anglocentric point of view, but I agree that for the time being we must be realistic and merge stubs that couldn't stand alone. Leave the big surnames like Li (surname meaning "plum") alone. _dk (talk) 19:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

*Delete zh:郦姓 - after seeing the rush of plain WP:INCOMPETENT comments above (exception dk) we should go there and delete the surname zh:郦姓 from Chinese wikipedia as well. After all if we're going to make a complete mess of Chinese surnames on en.wp we should go and mess up the names on Chinese wikipedia too. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

(ec) I wouldn't be so quick to proclaim Anglocentric or incompetence when it may be ignorance due to lack of RS. Add sources! Be aware of the irony of labelling editors by quoting WP:INCOMPETENT: "It does not mean we can label people as incompetent. For example, we do not say "You are incompetent because you don't know anything about the subject of this article. ... So if WP:COMPETENCE applies to an editor, it is usually not appropriate to tell them so." Widefox; talk 01:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• do nothing - lets let other discussions play out. There's no urgency here. Lets evolve an idea of what li (surname) should be and what it should contain, then merges or splits can be done later. This discussion right now only serves to fracture debate. Better let 1000 flowers bloom then collect them later if needed. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:20, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Questions:

User:Widefox. On what basis is zh:郦姓 not notable? Do you think there are not enough sources? What constitutes enough?

User:Wbm1058, same question. (in answer to "also wondering if there are any notable Chinese who have English-language articles, but do not have romanized names, so we are forced to use their Chinese-character names to identify them? - no, because those are articles about people so Andrew Lih could have "(writer)" added if there were two Andrew Lih not Andrew Lih (surname 郦). Second question, please clarify what "Given the length of my editing to-do list, this issue is of such a low priority" has to do with it? You are not the only editor available to edit these articles; there are plenty of WP:CHINA editors who can and will work on these articles unless they are prevented. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

User:TortoiseWrath, you mention "notability" and "English", so what does Wikipedia:Notability say about English sources? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:04, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Re: zh:... We're going round in circles, I seem to remember mentioning WP:OTHERSTUFF (also see WP:INN). About any sources there, yes, great!...didn't I right at the beginning ask for translation of non-English sources, which is per WP:NOENG . Widefox; talk 01:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• I don't read or speak Chinese, so cannot assess zh:郦姓 for notability, as I don't know what that says. Alas, Chrome doesn't even offer to translate it. zh:Andrew Lih isn't a good example of what I was asking, as the Chinese article clearly has (Andrew Lih) (romanized name, not parenthetical disambiguation, I assume). Better example is zh:王鐘銘, which doesn't show an English name...oops, I see from the inter language link that he does have a romanized name, it's Chung-Ming Wang. So, every Chinese name can be romanized? The problem is that a dozen or more different Chinese names all romanize to the same English name "Li"? Why is that? Are they all pronounced the same, but just written differently in Chinese? I'm sure that WP:CHINA editors are more able and inclined to work on these than I am. I'm not sure who the intended readership of these articles is, just other WP:CHINA editors, or the rest of us too? I see Li (surname) seems to be a name disambiguation page that kind of answers my questions. Does that link to all the other "Li surname" articles? Do each of the "Li surname" articles hatnote back to Li (surname)? Hmm, this is interesting: I've found what appears to be a "Jimmy" disambiguation here: zh:吉米. I suppose that if the Chinese disambiguate with English, then it should be OK for English to dab with Chinese. Wbm1058 (talk) 03:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• Close this discussion before it becomes a huge mess and bureaucratic nightmare. The discussion began on Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit"), and is still ongoing there. What we should avoid having is two different discussions on the same thing, which may potentially end up with two different outcomes. In such a case, which outcome do we follow? We'd just end up with even more bickering. Moving a portion of the discussion over here makes things confusing - some people already involved in the discussion don't know where to go, et cetera. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

No, this is the place for this separate discussion which does not affect the "sub-page" Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit"). This is discussing some non-notable stubs. In fact, any future discussion on the surname "Li" should be centralised here. --Rob Sinden (talk) 05:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

TortoiseWrath seems to have different ideas about what this merge discussion should include than you do.[1]. If we go by his interpretation, then this discussion does affect the "subpage". _dk (talk) 06:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

We certainly don't want overlapping discussions. The merge to location (here) is the default location, but doesn't have to be. Widefox; talk 07:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, these shouldn't be overlapping discussions. This is not about what to do about disambiguation as a whole, this is about three recently created non-notable stubs by a now blocked user. This merge should be a no-brainer. --Rob Sinden (talk) 07:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Make that five - Li (surname meaning "chestnut") and Li (surname meaning "whetstone") were created at the same time. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• Indeed, Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit")#Summary of the dilemma has an interesting table of eight Li (surname)s. Can that table be incorporated into this article? We need a base Li (surname) article that gives a good overview of the big picture, to help totally unfamiliar non-Chinese speakers begin to get a grasp of these concepts character meaning, rank and tone. Wbm1058 (talk) 11:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

This discussion wasn't intended to include the wider pre-existing articles, just the merging of recently created nonsensical stubs by a recently-blocked user. It should have been a fait accompli, but my redirects were reverted. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Totally support this location/thread for discussing the merger of the new articles only. Widefox; talk 15:53, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

• Merge all except Li (surname meaning "plum") to Li (surname) - Not notable by themselves and confusing to a non-Chinese reader to have so many pages on Li surnames. There must be enough of a consensus to merge, shouldn't someone be doing it by now? Hzh (talk) 19:00, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Check the full discussion, which spans multiple pages. We are nowhere near anything that even closely resembles consensus, to do anything. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:56, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

This discussion is only for the merge (the others are irrelevant here), and since the majority of the contributors want to merge, and there has been silence for more than a week (over a month in fact) here, per guidelines, that is good enough to suggest a consensus on this topic. The other discussion will then only be simplified considerably.

I only just recently came across the activity of the user Bmotbmot responsible for the creation of many surname pages (I suspect some of the IP editors traced to Korea are the same person as well), tried to fix some of his edits, but others are too terrible to of any use, too time-consuming to fix and not of enough significance to spend time fixing them, for example Si (surname), someone should just do a wholesale deletion if they can't be merged. Hzh (talk) 20:57, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

• Strong oppose! I think the only reasonable way is using Chinese character. I oppose any other alternatives.--刻意(Kèyì) 18:59, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

What would a merged article actually look like?

I thought it might help the discussion if people saw what a merged article might actually look like... so I have taken the liberty of drafting one in my user space.

• Please see: User talk:Blueboar/drafts - Li (surname)

Note... It isn't complete. I did not cut and pages all of the information that could go into it. I present my draft as a concept to be examined and discussed, and not as a final product.
I ask people not to edit my draft version... if you all find the concept and rough format acceptable, however, feel free to cut and paste it to another page... as a starter for a more complete article. Blueboar (talk) 15:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. To me this looks like a good starting point. Some obvious edits will be needed - pronunciations are not always different for example. The merged article isn't overly long and it is informative. We should bear in mind, though, that if the article is extended, it may be appropriate to break out separate articles for one or more of the surnames. That will take us back to the question of how to disambiguate, but I still feel sure that with good faith we can find acceptable, if not perfect, solutions. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:40, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks good to me.--Wikimedes (talk) 17:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Random break for convenience

This has already been said, but maybe examples will help explain the difference between a WikiProject Anthroponymy surname article and a WikiProject Disambiguation dab article:

(1) WP Anthroponymy articles by family history:

• Burges, Burgiss, Burgis, Burgise, Borges (surname)
• Li, Yi, Yee, Lee, etc. (surname)

(2) WP Disambiguation pages by random sound:

• Li, Li, Li, Li, Li, Li (6 unrelated surnames in late 20th Century Beijing pronunciation and pinyin system)
• Lee, Lee (2 unrelated family names one Irish, one Chinese)

Just as Burges, Burgiss, Burgis may change in Portuguese-Galician, Castillian, Occitan-Catalan etc, so Chinese surnames change by region, by time, and by competing romanization systems. See Unesco Journal of Information Science, Librarianship and Archives 1979 Page 178 "Thus, the family name Deng must not be confused with another family name, Teng. Wade-Giles system writes Deng as 'Teng', and Teng as 'Teng'. By omitting the aspiration mark (') as very often happened, the two family names were confused ..." etc. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

Li (surname) → List of surnames spelled Li –

• These are separate names that are spelled the same way in the most prevalent romanization style. It would be good for the title to acknowledge this fact.
• I propose that this become a set index article along the lines of Dodge Charger. From the linked set index article guideline: "A set index article is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that share the same (or similar) name". Also: "A set index article is meant for information as well as navigation: just like a normal list article, it can have metadata and extra information about each entry". This article seems to fit those criteria well. Wikimedes (talk) 04:22, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - although technically these are only List of surnames spelled Li in toneless English reduction of modern North Chinese pinyin, it's still an improvement from the present highly misleading title. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support: An improvement over the status quo. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:06, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:UE. If they have the same romanization, they're effectively the same name in English. --BDD (talk) 17:42, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Assume that your name is Barry, and your sister's name is Valey; does that mean that the two of you have "effectively the same name" in Japanese? --benlisquare_T•C•E 17:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Probably. Would they be different on, for example, a Japanese census? --BDD (talk) 18:38, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• I guess it depends on what the article is about. If it were about the surname Li among American immigrants, for example, then it would be the same name. It appears that some of the Chinese-speaking editors want articles about surnames in China, in which case they would be different names. It seems to me that one of the big points of contention boils down to whether we allow articles (or sections) on Chinese surnames in China on the English Wikipedia or whether there should only be articles on surnames as they would, say, appear on a Census in a country where English is the only (de facto) official language. (Or looked at from another angle, whether an article about the surname called Li in the English speaking world should be allowed or if the fact that the name Li derives from several different surnames in China means that an article on the surname Li should be prohibited.)

Another complicating factor is that it is very difficult for a surname article to be an encyclopedia article rather than a dictionary definition.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:40, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per BDD. No objection to treating the page as a set index article, but that doesn't require a title change. (Otherwise it would have to be List of things called Dodge Charger, which it isn't.) Dohn joe (talk) 18:54, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

BDD cited WP:UE which has nothing to say on the subject, the relevant guidelines for lists are at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists. As for the comparison of Chinese families to List of things called Dodge Charger, I expect to anyone interested in improving Wikipedia's anthroponymy articles that will not sounds like a relevant or serious or helpful contribution. In ictu oculi (talk)