Talk:Odysseus

Requested move 9 June 2018

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

The result of the move request was: consensus not to move the pages to the proposed titles at this time, per the discussion below. But as they say, "A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." Dekimasuよ! 01:22, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

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• Ulysses → Ulysses (disambiguation)
• Odysseus → Ulysses

– Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC with regard to Ulysses and disambiguation; and per WP:COMMONAME (by more than a 2:1 ratio) with regard to Ulysses [1] versus Odysseus [2] (specifically in the context of the Odyssey, not just the frequency of occurrence of the names). The mythological figure is by far the primary topic for "Ulysses". The rest of the stuff at the Ulysses disambiguation page is either people with this as a given name, or works, companies, etc., deriving their name from the mythological figure. That figure's most common name in English is Ulysses (even if some of us would rather that were not so). Odysseus might dominate in scholarly sources, but our common-name determinations are not based on usage in just the mythography and classical studies journals. The point is to use the name most WP:RECOGNIZABLE to our readers, and in English that's Ulysses by a wide margin. If the Odysseus name is retained for the article, Ulysses should still change to redirect directly to this article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:13, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose both moves. Ulysses (novel) is just as important as the mythical figure in terms of page views which are about equal. Web results are skewed by this as can be seen in titles like "The Odyssey in Ulysses" that appear prominently in the nominator's web results. These moves will create more problems than they solve. (I'm not really even sure what the problem is.) —  AjaxSmack  17:19, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose both moves. This is ridiculous. Odysseus is the common name and has been for at least the past fifty years. "Ulysses" is almost exclusively used in sources written half a century ago or earlier. All major modern translations of the Odyssey, including Fitzgerald (1961), Fagles (1996), Wilson (2017), and Green (2018) universally call him "Odysseus"; the last major translation to call him "Ulysses" was probably Butler's in 1900. He is virtually always referred to as "Odysseus" in nearly all scholarly and popular writings written within the last fifty years. I can hardly think of a scholar who does not call him "Odysseus." Nonetheless, since it seems to only be popular writings that you care about, you can pick up pretty much any children's book about mythology and it will call him "Odysseus"; this includes classics like D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths (1962) and more recent works like Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians series (2005 - 2009). The same is true for popular works targeting adults; Carl Kerényi's The Heroes of the Greeks, written as early as 1959 for an adult popular audience, already calls him "Odysseus." Changing this article's title to "Ulysses" would be moving it away from the current common name and harkening back to a quaint, archaic custom of using Latin names for Greek mythological figures from over a century ago. It simply does not make sense; this is equivalent to insisting that article currently title Gilgamesh be moved to Izdubar, since that is what he was almost universally known as a century ago, due to an incorrect reading of the cuneiform symbols used to write his name. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:56, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

You warmed my heart, citing D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths! I really should crack that open again... P Aculeius (talk) 14:42, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

• Strong oppose both. Modern scholarship names the character "Odysseus". I can draw upon dozens of books on my bookshelves (behind me as I write) to substantiate this if need be. Paul August ☎ 18:09, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose both moves. Contrary to the nom, the two major recent pop Iliad adaptations - Troy: Fall of a City and Troy (film) both called their character "Odysseus". If Sean Bean says he is Odysseus, I for one am not going to argue. I rest my case. Johnbod (talk) 21:15, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Well-intentioned, I think I should say that, and if you're a Latinist then understandable. But this is a Greek mythological figure, not a Roman one, and his Greek name is about as well-known as his Latin one, even if the Latin one is quite important due to historical use. If there were enough information on Odysseus in Roman myths, you could have a separate article under Ulysses, focusing on Roman traditions about Odysseus, and giving only a summary of the Greek. And that may be the case, particularly with respect to the number of notable people and things named after him. But leave Odysseus here. If this were a case of "Pergamon" vs. "Pergamum", I might be inclined to go with the Latin, but again, "Odysseus" is reasonably familiar to English speakers, and has been for a long time. I just hope that nobody comes along demanding to use some kind of modern hypercorrect transliteration, like, "Ódusséos". P Aculeius (talk) 14:38, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose 1st, STRONGLY Oppose 2nd per above. Odysseus is the most commonly-used name. Paintspot Infez (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

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

text to picture with Polyphemus

"the cyclop Polyphemus" When a Greek word has an s at the end it is generally not a plural (see kudos). It should be cyclops, not cyclop.Ealtram (talk) 16:27, 9 September 2018 (UTC)