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.

King Philippe of Belgium and Queen Mathilde of Belgium?

It has been requested that the article about Mathilde of Belgium, wife of Philippe of Belgium, be moved to Queen Mathilde of Belgium. The reason is this guideline. I believe the guideline is very faulty in this respect. It imposes illogical, senselessly inconsistent titles formatted "Y of X" and "Queen Z of X" where Y is the monarch and Z the monarch's wife. It should be either Queen Mathilde of Belgium and King Philippe of Belgium, or Mathilde of Belgium and Philippe of Belgium, or Mathilde, Queen of the Belgians and Philippe, King of the Belgians. It would be ridiculous to have her as Queen Mathilde and him as plain Philippe. 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. 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". Surtsicna (talk) 17:56, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I would support moving the reigning monarchs to King/Queen X of Y/X, King/Queen of Y (so Queen Margrethe II of Denmark/Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark and so on) I think the point of the naming was to differentiate between reigning monarchs and consorts, but it does make things a bit confusing. I'd also argue for ordinals on kings who are the first of their name. Morhange (talk) 22:08, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

RFC notification

There's a related RM/RFC at Talk:Queen Sonja of Norway, where it's been proposed that a series of articles should be moved from "Queen X of Y" to "X of Y". There's some argument over whether the discussion should be at that talk page or this one; I'm not too concerned either way, but I thought this page's watchers should at least be notified. DoctorKubla (talk) 19:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

RfC regarding the titles of articles about queens

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)
• No - I would say I basically agree with Surtsicna. john k (talk) 19:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• No - Delete sections 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)