Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)

Baron according to modern doctrine, but who was never so styled

Please see WT:PEERAGE#Baron according to modern doctrine, but who was never so styled and to keep the conversation in one place if you have an opinion about how such articles should be named please express it there. -- PBS (talk) 02:30, 8 February 2011‎ (UTC)

Lord Lucan

There is a discussion at Talk:Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan#Requested move which affects the vast majority of articles on British hereditary peers.

RfC regarding the titles of articles about queens

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Restarting the RfC here, per NickCT's suggestion.

Should articles about living queens be titled "Queen Y of Someland" while articles about living kings and queens regnant are titled "X of Someland"? 18:14, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

• No. There is no reasonable justification for referring to the monarch's wife as "Queen Z of Y" and to the monarch himself as "X of Y". It should be Noor of Jordan and Hussein of Jordan, not Queen Noor of Jordan and Hussein of Jordan; Máxima of the Netherlands and Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, not Queen Máxima of the Netherlands and Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, etc. Common sense indicates that, if the titles are not to match for some reason, he should actually be the one with the royal title and she the one without it.
  The notion that the format Mathilde of Belgium indicates a monarch while the format Queen Mathilde of Belgium indicates a consort is nothing but a Wikipedia invention. Only Wikipedia editors who have been editing royalty-related articles for years can find it natural to have a monarch's wife as Queen Sofía of Spain and an actual monarch as Juliana of the Netherlands. A random John Smith who comes to read about kings and queens will certainly not find that natural. If there is anything a random user can conclude from such formats, it's that the person with the title is more important and thus the monarch, while the one without the title is the consort. Believe it or not, nobody can conclude that Máxima is a consort just by reading "Queen Máxima of the Netherlands", and nobody would conclude that she is a monarch just by reading "Máxima of the Netherlands'". Surtsicna (talk) 18:14, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - To try and clarify a little here, I believe Surtsicna is proposing a change to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(royalty_and_nobility)#Consorts_of_sovereigns. NickCT (talk) 19:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks for clarifying on my behalf! Surtsicna (talk) 20:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• No - I would say I basically agree with Surtsicna. john k (talk) 19:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• No - Delete section on Consorts - Pretty much the one and only policy I look to in naming debates is WP:COMMONNAME. Thus, I find myself asking whether the guideline spelled out under the Consorts of sovereigns section is a common naming convention for monarchs. I'm not deeply versed on matters of royalty, but after brief review and search engine testing, I get the feeling that the guideline is not frequently applied in English language reliable sources. Frankly, the guideline looks arbitrary to me and appears to be something that was established to suite an individual editor's preference. The rule does not seem to be universally applied across WP (e.g. Mathilde of Belgium). I stand very much in the "No" camp on this one unless someone can explain to me how the current guideline for naming living consorts is useful or how it reflects common practice. NickCT (talk) 19:48, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment We usually have the benefit of the ordinal to distinguish sovereigns which is why we haven't included kingly or imperial titles. That got muddled up with the absence of "the first" for some. Move all monarchs to "Name, Title of Place" and consorts "Title Name of Place"? Seven Letters 22:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• No. As Surtsicna notes, this is a (to my knowledge) novel Wikipedia naming scheme. That is acceptable in certain cases, but it should usually be for some needed usability or clarity reason. Yet, I highly doubt that said convention is clear enough for Wikipedia readers to realize "Queen X" means consort, and just "X" means they reigned. And even that isn't the end; it doesn't matter if only 2% of readers pick up on it if there's no chance of confusion. Yet, as Surtsicna notes, it's quite plausible that this naming scheme is confusing enough that there's another 2% of readers who draw the *wrong* conclusion at first, and assume that "Queen X" means regnant. So yeah, kill the titles. (Presumably this should also apply to Prince Claus of the Netherlands and the like as well.) SnowFire (talk) 22:34, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

• Surtsicna has made the case that the Wikipedia convention is confusing and needs changing.

As I speculated at Talk:Queen Sonja of Norway, I think the current usage derives from usage in pirmary source medieval documents, when monarchs refered to each other on familiar terms. (because kings didnt' like to address others as "king", or because they often were family, more related to each than to their subjects?) If true, I don't think this is a good basis for a convention in an encyclopedia. If not true, the Wikipedia convention is still confusing.

My preference would be:

• For living, current monarchs, regnant and consorts: Title Name of place (skipping "of place" can cause biographies to be ambiguious with ships).
• For historical regnant monarchs: "Name, Title of Place"
• For historical consorts: "Name, Title consort of Place"

This much better satisfies recognizability and accuracy, removes the regnant-consort ambiguity, and removes the artifical convention differences between King and Grand Duke, for example.

Where the historical monarch/consort had multiple transient titles, we have to choose one, usually the highest, or otherwise do our best drawing guidance from the best sources.

I would leave Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother alone until she is no longer in living memory. Eventually, she should be titled Elizabeth, Queen consort of the United Kingdom

Where [Name, Title consort of Place] is ambiguous, disambiguate with (yyyy-yyyy)

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:42, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment. I have no idea what the actual reason was, but I presume the reason the title is omitted is a combination of (1) - titles change over time, or are different in different countries; "King-Emperor Grand Duke President Franz Joseph I" is unwieldy for a page, and not really accurate either, as the titles were theoretically separate. Also, (2) - Wikipedia owes no deference to any specific claim, similar to the rules against adding "PBUH" after Muhammad, or referring to people as "Their Eminence" or whatever in articles. There's no need to step in and imply that line X are the "true" kings if that means anything, and these other guys are just pretenders. More generally, leaders of countries don't get titles either - the article's at Barack Obama, not President Barack Obama, even if both are common names - so yeah. SnowFire (talk) 02:57, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The logic of that comment is hard to follow. Where someone had multiple titles at different times, one needs to be chosen. This is usually no big deal. Mary Queen of Scots comes to mind. Deference to specific claims comes from sources we choose to be the best.

Honorifics, whether mister, sir, HRH, eminence, majesty, I didn't think were part of this discussion?

I also didn't think truth-of-kingship was part of the discussion. Can we just assume that we're talking about ordinary cases first?

Bringing in presidents just muddies the water. True, there are elected, term limited monarchies, and the US President was modelled as a pseudo monarch, but we're talking royalty here, and royalty is moderately well contained, even if there are edge cases.

What sways me is consistency and recognizability. Consistency with other titles, such as Duke. Exclusion of King/Queen/Emperor amongst royalty/nobility is inconsistent. Recognizability - I don't think that anyone doubts that putting "Queen" in Mary Queen of Scots helps with recognizability. There is a very small concision cost. I can't see how any quantification of the cost leads to anything much. Similarly for consorts, the title helps with recognizability. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:15, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Isabella of Angoulême. This article title gives very little suggestion of who she was. Could be a consort of no greater significance. Could be a monarch of Angoulême. This convention of naming consorts by their maiden name is very much at odds with naming people according to what they were best known, and of naming historic people according to their highest rank.

The following would be better

• Isabella, Queen consort of King John of England

• Isabella, Queen consort of England

• Isabella, Countess of Angoulême (She was the countess in her own right) --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose this proposal, which is worded in a convoluted way which calls for a "no" vote to affirm it, instead of the usual Support or Oppose format. I concur with the proposer's desire to change the format which yields Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands as sovereign and consort of the same country. But I still support that format when the monarch has a regnal number (which most do: Philippe of Belgium and Willem-Alexander are unusual as kings), since readers are long accustomed to associating that format with monarchs (e.g. Henry IV of France, Mary II of England, William III of the Netherlands, Mohammed VI of Morocco, Maria II of Portugal, Nicholas II of Russia). But if an emperor or king lacks a regnal ordinal and may not be well-known to readers of an international encyclopaedia, we should insert their most widely-used title, e.g. Christina, Queen of Sweden; Louis Philippe, King of the French; Catherine, Queen of Navarre; etc. That format is much less jarring when referring to both sovereign and spouse, i.e. Margrethe II and Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark, Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway, Michael I of Romania and Queen Anne of Romania. Moreover, the latter adheres better to the principle of minimizing pre-disambiguation (because the "V" follows "Harald", it is not necessary to use "King", either as prefix or suffix). But when the monarch lacks an ordinal, we should insert the title, using Philippe, King of the Belgians to signal to readers that he is a monarch, as we often do when the monarch ranks below an emperor or king (e.g. Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg and Franz Joseph II, Prince of Liechtenstein). Since wives of emperors and kings don't use ordinals, their title helps identify their rank as empress or queen (although not whether she is a ruler or a ruler's consort) so I support and propose that change. But I'm no more convinced that readers will automatically know that Ferdinand of Romania was a king than they will recognize Marie of Romania automatically as his queen consort; so simply deleting the title from the article name doesn't solve the problem the original rule sought to address, which is distinguishing among the many historically notable royal persons who tend not to use surnames yet belong to dynasties which repeat use of the same few given names (Mary, John, Louis) over hundreds of years. Wikipedia's at-a-glance distinction between articles on queens regnant (Firstname, Queen of Realm) and queens consort (Queen Firstname of Realm) is worth preserving because the two positions happen to share the same title but are in fact fundamentally different functions, both legally and historically. When readers don't notice Wikipedia's way of distinguishing regnants from consorts, no harm is done, but when they do it helps clarify the functional difference by alerting them to it. Historically consorts of kings are often called "Firstname of Birthcountry" in English, and all the more so once no longer living or queen (e.g., Eleanor of Aquitaine, Catherine of Aragon, Mary of Modena, Marie Louise of Austria, Alexandra of Denmark, Grace Kelly, Soraya Esfandiary, Hope Cooke). FactStraight (talk) 07:11, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I oppose the proposal and essentially concur with FactStraight. The current situation may be unideal, but removing "King" and "Queen" across the board doesn't seem likely to help. Especially where women are concerned, "X of Y" often doesn't mean "Queen X of Y" (e.g. Mary of Modena wasn't queen of Modena; Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen wasn't queen of Saxe-Meiningen). A better solution would be to add "King"/"Queen" to article names for monarchs without ordinals (e.g. Hussein, King of Jordan and Juliana, Queen of the Netherlands). An added advantage is that this follows the pattern already established by a number of articles (e.g. John, King of England and Anne, Queen of Great Britain). Not all readers will notice or understand the difference, but the distinction will help those who do, and those who don't need only read the article's first paragraph to have it clarified. Alkari (?), 2 August 2013, 13:12 UTC

I also oppose the proposal and add my support for what FactStraight is proposing. Kings/queens with ordinals remain as they are, and we include 'X, King/Queen of Y' when there is no ordinal. Queen consorts would remain at Queen X of Y and then revert to their maiden names (even though I find this rule silly) upon their deaths. Morhange (talk) 18:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Oppose or Yes, ie. I agree with the above comments. Queens consort absolutely do need to be distinguished from queens regnant.Deb (talk) 10:32, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The question was not whether queens consort should be distinguished from queens regnant. Why do so by referring to a consort as Queen Sonja of Norway and to a monarch as Juliana of the Netherlands? There is nothing sensible about making such a distinction. It is terribly contra-effective. No distinction is certainly better than a misleading distinction. Surtsicna (talk) 11:22, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with that last statement. If you have an alternative suggestion as to how they should be differentiated, I would be glad to consider supporting it, but at the moment the "common name" addicts have made such an inconsistent mess of article naming conventions that I would prefer to leave things as they stand.Deb (talk) 12:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

You wish to make it clear to readers that queens consort are not monarchs, and you believe that the best way to do that is by using article titles that actually suggest the opposite? I truly cannot understand that. It is senseless to claim that a misleading, contra-effective distinction is better than no distinction. Surtsicna (talk) 13:22, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

• No. Surtsicna's arguments convince me, but then I didn't need much convincing. This never made any sense. Deb's argument, such as it is, boils down to "I don't like WP:COMMONNAME". Fine, then get it changed. You've had long enough. Angus McLellan (Talk) 12:35, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

This is simply untrue. I am not opposed to WP:COMMONNAME. I just don't like the way people use it as an excuse for being sloppy and not giving thought to article naming. But as you say, you didn't need much convincing that I am wrong whenever I happen to have a different opinion from yours. Deb (talk) 21:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

• No - we should use WP:COMMONNAME much more - searching for consistency when the sources aren't just means we've imposed an artificial hard to understand "standard" on our articles which doesn't fit with real world usage. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The truth is that a good, consistent, useable standard was introduced early in the history of this project. The "commonnamers" who found it too much of an effort then proceeded to dismantle it bit by bit, and now all we have is a tangle - forget any educational goal, we are "dumbing-down" as much as possible. Whilst I agree that the present method of differentiating between queens regnant and consorts is not ideal, it is still better than inviting confusion between the two.Deb (talk) 15:04, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The truth is it's not consistent and it's not useable by folks who aren't deeply familiar with monarchy/royalty articles. There is a good reason WP:COMMONNAME exists. One shouldn't need to read pages of policy to figure out how to title a small subgroup of articles. I don't get your "dumbing down" point b/c the naming convention you're supporting doesn't educate the reader of anything beyond some weird naming convention used by wikipedians. NickCT (talk) 16:17, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

It's no longer consistent because it's been changed so much over the years. I support the differentiation of naming conventions for monarchs and consorts as a means of helping readers understand that there is a difference. The present convention for this is different from the original, which was to use maiden names for all consorts - this was felt to be confusing in some cases. The result is that now we have a halfway house that no one really likes.Deb (talk) 16:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

re "helping readers understand that there is a difference" - Do you really think many readers are looking at "Queen Noor of Jordan" and thing "Ah, b/c there is a 'Queen' there it means she's a consort"?!?! That's nutty. I'm well familiar with what a consort is but I had no idea when looking over royalty pages that the include of "Queen" meant that such and such a person was a consort. NickCT (talk) 17:27, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

So I return to my previous question - how do you propose to differentiate them? If a proposal is put forward, I am quite likely to support it. Until then, I support the existing method.Deb (talk) 07:49, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

The same way we make clear the difference between Head cheese and other kinds of cheese. By putting text in the body of the article. It would be very easy to put straight into the first sentence of the lead "X of Someland is the queen consort of Someland". The reader doesn't have to go very far to understand that there is a difference. NickCT (talk) 20:15, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

You mean brawn. Okay, I can see where you're going with this, but an individual queen isn't a "kind" of queen. I favour a more immediate method of distinguishing them - in fact, I favour returning to maiden names, but, since that's not what this discussion is about, I really don't think that having no distinction is helpful to a reader. I suppose we could put some kind of header in the article saying something like "This article is about a queen consort" or "This article is about a queen regnant... Deb (talk) 21:02, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

If the present guideline suggested titles such as Queen consort Mathilde of Belgium and you wished to retain that guideline for the purpose of distinguishing consorts from monarchs, I would understand that. That is not the case, however. The guideline you wish to retain provides no meaningful distinction, as there is nothing about the title Queen Mathilde of Belgium that suggests that she is a consort. Absolutely nothing. If there is anything it can suggests, it's exactly the opposite - that she is a monarch. Surtsicna (talk) 21:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I expect that once readers have opened an article they will find out all the relevant info about its topic. Consistent formatting of bio titles to distinguish between the fundamentally different types of queen who share that title is, however, helpful to at least some and harmless to the rest, just as is the differentiation we make in titling articles about substantive titleholders (e.g., Charles, Prince of Wales or Marie, Princess of Liechtenstein) and courtesy or cadet titleholders (e.g., Prince Harry of Wales or Princess Marie Isabelle of Liechtenstein - the latter, born a fille de France, is known in real life exclusively as "Princess Marie of Liechtenstein" -- only Wikipedia compels her to add "Isabelle"). The distinction is appropriate, aids some, burdens none, and therefore should be retained. FactStraight (talk) 21:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

It can only aid us, users who are used to this sort of "distinction". We are not writing these articles for us, however. We are writing them for those who have no idea that we mean Queen consort Silvia of Sweden when we say Queen Silvia of Sweden. If there is anything those non-experts can assume, it's the opposite. Surtsicna (talk) 21:31, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is chockful of features and formats which aid those who regularly edit more than they help those who simply read Wikipedia -- this talk page for example. Yes, that inscrutable "talk" button may be meaningless for some, an annoying distraction for a few, and a clue to how to understand and participate better for the Wikipedians who edit the encyclopaedia and appreciate signposts that explain and/or guide them. Ditto for everything on a Wikipedia page that isn't text in the article -- Navigation, Tool Box, Statistics, Templates & Categories: for most these will never be useful, for a few they may make the project more bewildering, while for others they help map how things function, encouraging involvement. Any distraction is minimal or non-existent to the vast majority so we don't withhold the utility from those who find the format a worthwhile tool. Whether most people do notice that Marie, Princess of Liechtenstein and Princess Marie Isabelle of Liechtenstein are not only two different women but occupy two related but profoundly different roles in Liechtenstein or whether most never notice, the distinction is appropriate, it's one some are affirming is important to us to preserve, Wikipedia's way of flagging it disrupts nothing, and the format may become more familiar and useful over time to those editing these kinds of articles. This format isn't "broke", so doesn't need fixing. FactStraight (talk) 23:43, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I never said that "X, Princess of Anyland" and "Princess Y of Anyland" formats were broken. It's clear which format is broken. I strongly disagree that we should force readers to wait until such broken formats "become more familiar and useful over time", especially when we can present to them a format that does not require any puzzling over to figure it out. Surtsicna (talk) 11:33, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Contrary to FactStraight's belief that the format is not broken, Surtsicna has made the straight forward case that the titling format is broken in that a reasonable reader may mistake "Queen" titled articles as articles on regnant queens, alongside Name of Place articles as articles that are not about queens. The forseeable likely possibility of misleading means it is broken. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:31, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

No, because the format shouldn't be compared to some non-existent ideal, but to a real alternative before us that addresses the concerns under discussion. But this oddly-worded proposal deprecates a particular combination ("Queen Firstname of Realm" when her Sovereign spouse is at "Firstname of Realm"): it doesn't specify an alternative, although one would be that all queens, regnant and consort, are henceforth to use the same format (whatever that format is -- we have yet to decide that!) requiring that we deliberately blur the distinction some consider important and do-able and requiring re-titling of all the articles that have been titled differently. The fact that some people will miss the distinction between consorts and regnants isn't a problem because it doesn't impede use of the encyclopaedia any more than any other formats apppearing on these articles that are ignored by most. Article titles which don't reflect the distinction would continue to get re-directs or re-names from editors who are aware and care -- exactly as now happens. A better and far easier fix, and the alternative advocated by at least 3 in this discussion, is to resolve the problem on the vast majority of cases by inserting the monarch's title whenever s/he lacks a regnal number or cognomen (Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, Philippe, King of the Belgians), leaving the "Queen Firstname of Realm" format for consorts of living kings where it's now in use. FactStraight (talk) 14:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• No, aka support for clear reasons of common name and consistency. It's illogical in the extreme to distinguish them this way when reliable sources do not. Red Slash 03:29, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose proposal - for all the reasons above and, further, the birthright royalty or nobility is actually the one who holds the title unless, generally, letters of patent are issued for the spouse; the spouse (and children) hold titles by courtesy. So if only one half of a royal couple is going to be identified by title then shouldn't it be the holder? EBY (talk) 20:17, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm a bit confused, EBY. You say you oppose the proposal but your arguments seem to perfectly match the arguments of those who support the proposal, including me (i.e. not identifying the consort by title because the actual holder is not identified by title). Could you please reread the question and my original comment? Thanks. Surtsicna (talk) 09:02, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
    • I think that's because the proposal (I would prefer to call it a question because it doesn't actually propose anything) is worded back to front and can be taken either way - either "Do you agree with me that articles about living queens should be titled "Queen Y of Someland" while articles about living kings and queens regnant are titled "X of Someland"?" or "Does it make sense that articles about living queens be titled "Queen Y of Someland" while articles about living kings and queens regnant are titled "X of Someland"?" Deb (talk) 10:02, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
• No. I agree with Surtsicna: the current scheme makes no sense. Plus, as an American, I find this obsession with identifying mere consorts to be vastly amusing. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 07:41, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support, per WP:COMMON. Status quo seems to be part of the pattern where Wikipedia royal-article editors have developed their own layers of ossified custom and convention, on top of those of the royals they seek to document, and without a sound basis in reliable sources and common usage. In some broad thematic sense that's very apt, but in WP policy terms, it's not. Also agree with the observation that it would have been better if the proposal had avoided the "double negative" construction. It could be seen as confusing, or worse, an attempt at subliminal shifting of "burden of changing the consensus". 84.203.33.254 (talk) 22:35, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
• There seem to be several questions. I believe that the title, whatever the case, should be either the "official" or the "common" name, not something that is never or hardly ever used (like we are forced to endure, owing to Wikipedia's strange interpretation of "consensus", in the case of Prince Harry of Wales). If this is not possible due to ambiguity constraints, then the title should at least be something that readers will correctly interpret, and will not give the impression that some name or style is commonly or officially used when it isn't (which is my objection to Prince Harry of Wales). The convention for reigning kings and queens seems to me to be OK in this regard, as long as exceptions can be made when helpful. The convention for consorts also seems to be largely OK, but it seems a bit silly to me to change titles as soon as someone dies - why not wait and see how they become known by history, rather than try to second-guess? There is a good reason for including "Queen" with a queen consort and not (necessarily) with a reigning sovereign: the consort will not have a numeral to indicate royalty as the topic (and when the reigning sovereign lacks a numeral, the convention is to include King or Queen in that title too). Normally a name like "Jane of Somecountry" doesn't imply that Jane is the Queen (or anything similar) of that country, so should not be used unless that particular person really is commonly called by that name. All told I think I support no change to the convention except as regards the rule about changing names on death, and except it should perhaps be made more clear that exceptions are fine where appropriate. W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Notice to closing admin

Not like you needed the help, but this proposal is really confusingly worded. Currently, we do use article titles to distinguish reigning monarchs from consorts. My understanding is that Surtsicna, John K, NickCT, 7 Letters, SnowFire, SmokeyJoe (roughly), Angusmclellan, Ealdgyth, Red Slash (myself) and EBY3221 all agree that we should not distinguish between regnant and consort queens by including a word such as "queen" in any title of the article about a consort (except perhaps in extreme cases), since we don't include the word "queen" in the title for regnants. Meanwhile, generally speaking, Deb, Alkari and FactStraight (EDIT: and 7 Letters) all disagree. Let me know, commenters, if I've inaccurately represented your position. Red Slash 02:06, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Good try, but my read on this differs somewhat. Currently we do not use the title "king" in those bios on sovereigns who lack a regnal number yet we do so for their consorts, producing an incongruous "Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands" combination which no one here cares to preserve. As one solution, three of us support inserting the title where the ordinal would be for monarchs who lack it, yielding combinations such as "Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands", consistent with extant combinations like "Harald V of Norway and Queen Sonja of Norway" or Juan Carlos I of Spain and Queen Sophia of Spain", resolving most of the incongruity while preserving the usual distinction between queens regnant and living queens consort that is currently prevalent in royal bios. Although no one seems to support the status quo, it's not clear what alternative is preferred by those who want to drop the regnant-vs-consort distinction even if the "unnumbered kings" problem is resolved as suggested: Klaas wants to drop all use of titles in all royal bios (i.e., Máxima Zorreguieta) while Surtsicna has proposed retaining at least part of the royal title for consorts (i.e., Maxima of the Netherlands) but I have not heard which if either of these options is preferred by others, like 7 Letters. This proposal calls for a consensus against a format without there yet being a discernible consensus for an alternative. Our work here isn't done yet. FactStraight (talk) 04:30, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, the people in favor of what you describe are who Red Slash already lists as opposing (e.g. Alkari would prefer adding the title). Most of the positions are vanilla agreements with Surtsicna's proposal. SnowFire (talk) 16:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Red Slash, you are incorrect, I'm afraid. I support keeping the naming convention "Name (Ordinal) of Place" for kings-, queens-, emperors- and empresses regnant and the form "Title Name of Place" for consorts. However, if that is not acceptable, I would prefer "Title Name of Place" for consorts and "Name (Ordinal), Title of Place" for ALL sovereigns. Seven Letters 16:01, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I've re-sorted you. Not sure how I messed that one up, sorry!! Red Slash 01:38, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Others continue to weigh in. NinjaRobotPirate supports Surtcicna's original proposal, as does anon 84.203.33.254 (having contributed 6 edits to 3 talk pages from 8-10 August) while observing that the proposal's wording may seem confusing or biased. EBY states opposition to the proposal, yet seems to argue in favor of it, but hasn't responded to a request to clarify. Neljack and Morhange oppose the proposal. Klaas|Z4␟ and TFD want the use of titles minimized, and so don't opine on whether they should distinguish between types of queens or not. SnowFire and Red Slash, agreeing with the proposal, interpret it to deprecate distinguishing between queens regnant and consort in article titles and conclude that most here agree with that, while I, opposing the proposal (and mindful of points 4 & 6 of the Straw Poll Guideline), interpret it to deprecate use of titles for consorts so long as their regnant spouses get none. FactStraight (talk) 23:59, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion 1 - for distinguishing consorts and explaining what they are through the article text

• Here's a suggestion for how to deal with this issue, whether or not Surtsicna's proposal is adopted. How about creating a template that can be put at the head of articles about consorts (male or female), explaining the difference between this and a monarch? (Or have we already got such a template and I just haven't spotted it?) I haven't had much time to think this through so I won't be offended if people disagree. Deb (talk) 10:28, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

@Deb - 1) Kudos for trying to think outside the box to come up with a resolution. 2) Take a look at Template:Infobox_royalty. Look at the "spouse =" field. Is this like what you are thinking about? NickCT (talk) 13:28, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Not really. I was thinking more of something that says "This article is about a consort, not a monarch, blah-di-blah." Deb (talk) 13:44, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Couldn't a lead sentence, as the very first sentence in the article, make that clear? Something like: "Sonja (née Haraldsen; born 4 July 1937), queen consort of Norway, is the wife of the reigning Norwegian monarch, Harald V." Take a look at how that looks. It's as straightforward as possible; her husband is identified as the monarch, and she as his consort. Surtsicna (talk) 14:13, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it could, but I felt that a template might

1. serve to underline the distinction between consort and monarch
2. be less liable to accidental omission or alteration

Deb (talk) 15:23, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't think that is a good idea. The articles have ledes that make it quite clear. This is an issues of titles, not content. The titles are ambiguous to readers who are looking at the title, before they click and download (or purchase, or order, or print, in whatever downstream product they may be using). Given a list of titles of royalty, a reader may reasonably make false assumptions about which were consorts and which were regnant. It is a titling issue, and it is just a titling issue. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:26, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Ultimately, isn't that what reading the article is for? Seven Letters 18:46, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion 2 - for distinguishing consorts through the article title

Having had further thoughts, I have an additional suggestion about titling, but once again I would like to know people’s immediate reaction before I go to the lengths of putting it forward as a proposal. Suppose that we had an article called The Queen of (anycountry) for every country that is likely to have a living queen consort. (I don’t think there is really an issue with male consorts, as titles are not consistent in any case.) This article would be distinct from an article called Queen of (anycountry), which would be about the ‘’title’’ and would have a cross-reference to the present incumbent.

The article entitled The Queen of (anycountry) would have the following characteristics

1. If the incumbent queen is a monarch, it would redirect to her article, at whatever title it happens to be (eg. Elizabeth II)
2. If the incumbent queen is a consort, it would be an article about that individual
3. If there is no incumbent queen, it would say so, or redirect to a disambiguation page or list of consorts for that country
4. If the consort is known by some other title than “Queen”, it would redirect to that

I know it may sound a little off-the-wall, but I believe it might work.Deb (talk) 17:35, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

So, to be clear, you're suggesting the following changes:

• The Queen of Denmark to redirect to Margrethe II of Denmark
• The Queen of the United Kingdom, The Queen of Canada, etc., to redirect to Elizabeth II
• Queen Silvia of Sweden→The Queen of Sweden
• Queen Sonja of Norway→The Queen of Norway
• Queen Mathilde of Belgium→The Queen of the Belgians (or The Queen of Belgium?). What is to be done, then, about Queen Paola of Belgium and Queen Fabiola of Belgium?
• Queen Sofía of Spain→The Queen of Spain
• Queen Máxima of the Netherlands→The Queen of the Netherlands

Would this also apply to non-European consorts? To consorts of European grand dukes and princes? What about consorts of deposed monarchs, like Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, Queen Anne of Romania, and Queen Margarita of Bulgaria? john k (talk) 20:07, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

You are correct in your interpretation of what I mean. At the moment I am only talking about queens, as I'm not sure how many exceptions there might be. I don't see why it shouldn't apply to consorts of deposed monarchs, if they are presently titled as "Queen".Deb (talk) 21:31, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Alright, but why would we do that? What would we accomplish? There was never any initiative to move articles such as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge to The Duchess of Cambridge and such titles. Isn't Margrethe II of Denmark "The Queen of Denmark"? How would that help readers understand that The Queen of Spain is not a monarch but Wilhelmina of the Netherlands is (which seems to be your main goal)? It puts us back to square one. Surtsicna (talk) 11:45, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Because The Queen of Spain would be a redirect if it was a monarch and an article about a person if it was not. You don't want a way of distinguishing between consorts and monarchs - fair enough - but I find this is a major area of misunderstanding, especially for readers who come from countries that don't have a monarchy (eg. the USA). Deb (talk) 11:48, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

But how would an engineer from the USA know that articles about monarchs are supposed to be at "X of Someland" while articles about wives of monarchs are supposed to be at "The Queen of Someland", and not the other way around? Why should we expect that same person to know that "The Queen of Someland" is not supposed to be a monarch? It's not that I am against distinguishing between consorts and monarchs; it's that I am against distinguishing between them in ways that are not obvious and logical to outsiders, and especially against distinguishing between in ways that mislead and confuse outsiders. Surtsicna (talk) 11:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

In what way do you think this would be misleading? My thought was that it would assist because it would not only take the reader immediately to the exact place they wanted to be, but it would make it clearer that there is more than one type of "Queen". At the moment you are proposing removing all distinction between consorts and monarchs without replacing it with anything, and I am trying to seek solutions that would benefit those who find the present situation confusing. Deb (talk) 12:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Deb: the point is that the distinctions you are making are arbitrary. There's no more reason to put reigning queens at "X of Country" and consorts at "The Queen of Country" than there is to do the reverse, and put reigning queens at "The Queen of Country" and consorts at "X of Country". Titles shouldn't be based on arbitrary distinctions like that. Added to that, I don't see why the article title needs to inform anyone of the difference between consorts and reigning monarchs. That is what the lead paragraph is for. john k (talk) 12:15, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think they are arbitrary, because they are rooted in the present naming conventions (which exist purely because people used to get very confused when there were no conventions). To "put reigning queens at "The Queen of Country" and consorts at "X of Country"" would mean having to reconsider the titles of male monarchs as well, thus there is more reason to do what I suggest rather than the reverse. I accept that the titles resulting from this proposal would not be "intuitive", which I think is what you mean, but this was never a question that was going to be easily resolved. I'm just making a constructive suggestion to try and find a compromise. If someone wants to suggest an alternative, I would love to hear it. Deb (talk) 12:38, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

The distinctions aren't arbitrary, the titling is: queens regnant and queens consort are different offices with different functions which, for historical reasons, bear the same title and similar though not identical styling. The attempt to distinguish between them in Wikipedia article names isn't some newly fabricated intention or effort, but is something many if not most of these articles already reflect, by no coincidence. For instance, in using maiden names for past consorts we've tried to build on a common principle that operates outside of Wikipedia. Is it perfect? No, there are non-queens who share the naming form of "Firstname of Place" (Joan of Arc), but we've preserved it precisely because it is based on a real world distinction that generates a consistent enough pattern to not be ignored by an encyclopaedia (e.g., Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mary of Guise, Anne of Austria, Mary of Teck). When readers don't pick up on that pattern no harm is done, yet as with any convention the more consistently it is adhered to the more intuitive it becomes to people (irony: Dutch newspapers reported that last week freshly hung portraits of the new Queen Máxima of the Netherlands were ordered taken down from court house walls, although the portraits of the 3 previous Dutch queens had always been displayed. But they had been regnants and Maxima is a consort. The portraits were hung on the erroneous assumption that the fact Maxima is also titled "Queen of the Netherlands" meant that she was due the same treatment as Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix. But the judges objected -- they dispense judgment in the name of the Sovereign only -- and the distinction was re-asserted by removing Maxima). The fact that Marie, Princess of Liechtenstein and her cousin Princess Marie Isabelle of Liechtenstein or Margrethe II of Denmark and her sister Queen Anne-Marie of Greece are styled differently to reflect different types of titleholders may not be picked up on by most readers, yet the distinction is appropriate, does not impede anyone's use of the encyclopaedia and was correctly picked up on by Wiki editors. Wikipedia conventions for article titles, such as usually omitting articles (Eagles not The Eagles) or usually only capitalising the first word (Living room) are not obvious, not particularly intuitive, not always adhered to, but they work because they don't impede those who never notice, while aiding those who do. A compromise which respects the premise on which many of these articles have already been edited is what's sought here, given that no significant adverse impacts flow from doing so. FactStraight (talk) 13:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• No For queens who rule or have ruled, I would use their first name and number if applicable, and office if necessary for disambiguation. For example, "Elizabeth II, or "Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom." For queens consort I would use their names before they married, e.g., "Mary of Teck" for Queen Mary. Otherwise, both "common name", "disambiguation" and common sense apply, such as with "Queen Victoria." We should avoid unnecessary use of titles in articles about individuals. I note that some editors consider the name of their realms to be the equivalent of last names, but that is only true in some cases, such as "Teck." TFD (talk) 04:55, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
• Depends on the rules of the country. Belgium has three queens: Mathilde (king'n wife), Paola (king's mother) and Fabiola (king's aunt) while Netherlands has none.  Klaas|Z4␟V:  08:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Máxima is the Queen of the Netherlands as much as Mathilde is the Queen of the Belgians. Neither of them have a constitutional position but are nevertheless undisputably queens of their husbands' realms.Surtsicna (talk) 09:56, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
    • The important point is that Paola and Fabiola are ex-queens and would be treated as such in a new naming conventions.Deb (talk) 10:32, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
    • What do you mean "indisputably"? Klaas is making it clear that he does dispute that "Máxima is the Queen of the Netherlands" and, as he says, Dutch Wikipedia agrees, inasmuch as their article on King Willem-Alexander's consort is titled Máxima Zorreguieta and still refers to her as "prinses Máxima" therein, while the article on the consort of King Philippe of the Belgians is Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz, and the consort of Queen Elizabeth II is Philip Mountbatten, which is the "NPOV" format he is recommending that English Wikipedia adopt -- his (and Dutch Wikipedia's) "no titles" variation on the proposal under consideration here. FactStraight (talk) 23:07, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
  • All problems are solved if one returns to the proposal to not mentioning any title in the article's title as is usual on Dutch Wikipedia (the only exception is Pope (Paus). All others head of state, consort etc. are just named like anybody else. NPOV so to speak. Any Wikipedia can have their own policy of course.  Klaas|Z4␟V:  12:19, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
    • "Queen of the realm" is inaccurate. In this case, "Queen" is not a substantive title. It is merely that women take their husband's name upon marriage, and may retain it upon divorce. It is similar to Hilary Clinton being entitled to call herself "Mrs. Bill Clinton." I agree with ZeaForUs. For disambiguation, however, we sometimes need to mention the person's position. "Ann, Queen-consort of Ruritania" reads better than "Ann (queen-consort of Ruritania)". TFD (talk) 17:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• No. Whatever the decision on usage of "King" and "Queen" in titles, biography titles should include the name of the person. "Queen of England" should be considered a position not a person, and redirect somewhere such as Monarchy of the United Kingdom. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:00, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
  • In my proposal above, "Queen of England" would always be an article about the title, and "The Queen of England" would always be a redirect (because there is no one who holds that title now and quite probably never will be again).Deb (talk) 10:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose proposal per FactStraight. Neljack (talk) 08:53, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
• No. If it sounds off the wall, that'll be because it is off the wall. This moves even further away from common names when any move should be in the opposite direction. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:27, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia doesn't follow its own guidelines

The guidelines say: " Living royal consorts are referred to by their present name and title".

Well, there are no such titles as Queen Máxima of the Netherlands or Queen Mathilde of Belgium. Based on what Wikipedia itself recommends, the articles should be renamed "Queen Maxima, Princess of the Netherlands" and "Mathilde, Queen of the Belgians" (or "Queen Mathilde of the Belgians"). 161.24.19.112 (talk) 13:33, 3 October 2013 (UTC)