Talk:List of people known as the Great

Theodore Rossevelt?

Theodore Roosevelt the Great? I have NEVER heard of him referred to as 'the great'..A google search for turns up no instances of him being called "the great" except a paper for students to plagiariz "theodore roosevelt the great environmentalist". I'm removing this.--Notenderwiggin (talk) 17:32, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Akbar

Should we note that the name Akbar itself means great (though it's an elative, better translated as greater or greatest)? --Xyzzyva (talk) 22:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Genghis Khan

I've removed Genghis Khan from the list, as I've never seen a single source refer to him as "Genghis Khan the Great". This may stem from the fact that Genghis Khan was "Khagan" of the Mongol Empire, which is often rendered "Great Khan" but is in reference to his superiority over other Khans. The meaning of the word Genghis is also under debate, but the two dominant theories do not include "the Great" or "great" as a meaning. siafu (talk) 01:56, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Apocryphal "Greats"

I'm noticing after being led here by the edit to Genghis Khan that there are several "greats" in the list that don't seem to have any support for their being labelled "the great". The second member of the list, in fact, is listed here as "Ahmad the Great", but the article on him does not mention this moniker at all, instead referencing "Ahmad Shah Baba", or "Ahmad Shah, the Father". I'm going to go through the list and root out the ones for which there is not (or not yet) any evidence. siafu (talk) 02:03, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Pacal

I removed "Pacal the Great" from this list (and associated template), as the use of this epithet for this particular Palenque ruler is only a recent, informal and occasional innovation, applied by some 20thC scholars—mostly when writing for a popular audience—as a rough descriptor and a convenient shorthand way to disambiguate from several other Maya personages that had Pakal as (part of) their name. It can not really be said that he was termed as such during his lifetime or by his successors; the K'inich term in his full and proper name may be translated as "great sun-faced [lord]", but he's not the only one to have incorporated this into his name upon accession to rulership and in any case grammatically it functions as part of his name, not a title or descriptor. Sure, he reigned for an impressive and unusually long period, and was commemorated in inscriptions as a "5-k'atun lord"; but to put things into perspective the polity of Palenque he ruled was only one of 40-50 or more in the Classic period Maya central lowlands and in territorial terms took in probably no more than the surrounding land within a day's walk. Also don't think this is how he is 'most usually' known, it's only really in the writings of Schele et al. for a general audience that this was coined. Otherwise, he's referred to by his full and proper name which has by now been confidently deciphered — K'inich Janaab' Pakal. Have been meaning for a while now to move his article to his actual name, and not this informal approximation.

Also, not really sure about the usefulness of this 'people known as 'The Great' article, or how it can be other than some arbitrary selection. Known by whom, by how many, and when...? What if called 'the Great' by one faction, but deprecated by another? Any requirement for them to have reigned over a decent-sized territory/populace, or would any micro-principality do? etc, etc. Seems ill-defined, to me. --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

• If this list stays, Pakal should be on it. It includes many rulers whose title is an artifact of modern historiography and not contemporary usage. The title is used in Martin & Grube and reflects a popular name for this Ajaw, if not his most correct or common one. Eluchil404 (talk) 21:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Confusion between "Great" and "Great King"

The Persian kings did not call themselves "the Great". They called themselves "Great Kings", which is one inseparable expression. There are certainly no documents where Cyrus claims that he was personally "Great" - if he should be included, so should all of his successors.

The same goes for the Seleucid kings: Antiochus III was ironically known as "the Great" by the Romans who defeated him - what he did was in fact to explicitly assume the title Great King, though there are cuneiform where his predecessors, due to their sway over Persia, had also done so. It was hardly a personal surname.

This page lists people who are known to posterity as "Great", but perhaps we should add when this was not a contemporary epithet? The first person, to my knowledge, to hold that epithet during his lifetime was Pompey, who was indeed given the title Magnus by the senate.Sponsianus (talk) 14:57, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Removal of sections

To seek to avoid the charge that is easily levied at this article of being an indiscriminate collection of information, I have removed two large and uncited sections. As it stood the article was hugely vulnerable if proposed for deletion. Even now the lack of citations makes it highly vulnerable.

Serious thought needs to be given to making "every entry a cited entry" to seek to ensure that it is deemed worthy to stay. It may be "interesting", but is it "encyclopaedic"? Fiddle Faddle (talk) 21:22, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

listing criteria

What is the criteria for being listed? Obviously those commonly rendered as "the Great" in English, but what about others? Since these people exist as names in other languages than English... some of those would possibly be rendered as "Great" as well, but some of those terms need not be rendered as "Great" at all... 76.66.193.90 (talk) 06:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Article title

The article's focus appears to be rulers - monarchs and such. Presumably we don't want to have people like The Great Gatsby or The Great Waldo Pepper. I suggest therefore that the article be moved to List of rulers known as The Great. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)