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See archives for contributions before this time stamp Philip Baird Shearer 08:58, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please list here any Wikipedia:Request move which uses or abuses this convention

• Talk:Ntare VI — Ntare VI → Ntare VI of Ankole - "King of Ankole, article is missing his kingdom." --Lox (t,c) 17:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to try and rename most of the articles on the spouses of Royal Peers (ex. Sophie, Countess of Wessex; Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall; Brigitte, Duchess of Gloucester; Katharine, Duchess of Kent) this is because in case you have not realized with these articles located where they are it implies that they are Royal divorceès.(such as Sarah, Duchess of York or Diana, Princess of Wales) Which they arent. what I propose is to make a simple change and move these articles to [name], the [Duchess of..., Countess of..., Princess of....etc.], this is the more correct and accurate location for these articles. I would apreciate it if you could let me know your ideas, and maybe we could bring it to a vote. Thanks Mac Domhnaill

I support the idea of change. Saying Sophie, Countess of Wessex actually means Sophie, formerly Countess of Wessex, aka the Earl of Wessex's ex-wife. (That is where the Diana, Princess of Wales and Sarah, Duchess of York comes from.) That form was laid down as the form for royal ex-wives by the Queen in 1996 (I forget whether it was by Order-in-Council or some other means, but the form was agreed if I remember correctly just before Charles and Diana's divorce).

Royal husbands don't need the the: no-one is going to think that Charles, Prince of Wales means Charles, the ex-husband of the Prince of Wales! But our royal bride naming is factually wrong and confusing. After all, how can we explain that Diana, Princess of Wales means, Diana, the ex-wife of the Prince of Wales but Sophie, Countess of Wessex means Sophie, the current wife of the Earl of Wessex, especially when Diana was never called Diana, Princess of Wales during her marriage! This sort of thing breeds confusion when an encyclopædia should be bringing clarity. FearÉIREANN 02:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I started some of these articles, but not at their present titles. Deb 17:34, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree as well. It is extremely confusing the way it is now. I would only change one thing with the proposal. Would it be possible to make it [Name], [The Countess of ...]. As most of the British royals are styled as The Countess (Duchess or whatever), this would keep it consistent. For the deceased consorts, we can use the lower case 'the' to show the differnce. Any ideas??? Prsgoddess187 18:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I support this proposal. I think there should also be a standard for the title of deceased consorts of princes, currently some are at their pre marital name (eg Princess Alice of Albany) and some are at their post marital name (eg Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent) I think all should go to the pre marital name. Astrotrain 11:25, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just name the articles The Countess of Wessex, etc? We would normally just call her HRH The Countess of Wessex. I'm not so sure about royals, but for normal peers' wives (or peeresses in their own right) the first name is not included. The first name is only added once they are widowed or divorced. So my vote would be for not including the first name of current wives. Once they are widowed or divorced, the article can be renamed to reflect that. --JRawle 18:12, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We cant really not include a first name. This is because there have been many Princesses of Wales, Duchesses of York etc. So for disambiguation purposes we need to include a first name, This is just a matter of finding the most correct place to put the article, while still specifically identifying the person. Mac Domhnaill

And you are wrong about the first names of wives of peers not being included see: Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, for just one example. Mac Domhnaill

My point was that there is only ever one Princess of Wales or Countess of Wessex at a time, or more to the point there's at most one now. However, I do take your point about peerage articles. Indeed, articles about peers themselves also include their "real" name, even where they are usually known solely by their title. So I think you can disregard my earlier argument! --JRawle 19:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, since we all agree change is needed, for now why dont we say that all wives British peers, (royal or otherwise) will be titled, [Name], [The Countess of..., The Duchess of.....etc.]. Can we all agree to this?? (And yes Astrotrain, I think that there needs to be a set rule on Princesses aswell, However I would support putting a Princess (by marriage) at the highest style she held during her life. Ex: Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, would remain at Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent. I would consider this to be herhighest title. And say Sophie, Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein at death would move to her higher premarital title of HRH Princess Sophie of Bavaria. What do you think??) Mac Domhnaill

...all current wives of British peers, (royal or otherwise) titled, [Name], [The Countess of..., The Duchess of.....etc.]. If they are a widow, divorcee, or if it's a historical entry, it shouldn't have the The in there, is that right? But if this is the policy, why shouldn't the same thing apply to the peers themselves? Current peers should be The Nth Earl of... --JRawle 10:48, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't workable, J. We have to include a first name for disambigulation purposes because not everyone will know the title in isolation, or the first name in isolation. This has been explored at length. First name is necessary. The only issue is WP's decision in using name and title not to use the, which meant that the form for divorced and existing titles of wives were the same. Current wives include the. Ex-wives don't. It looks like we have a clear consensus to fix that. The first name thing is a different issue and from past experience unworkable with them. In articles one may need to refer to the late Princess Royal, Mary and the current Princess Royal, Anne, in the same article. One needs the first name to distinguish between them. The same is true with peers given that many peerages have died out and been reissued. So otherwise you'd have the third earl of 'x' (first issue) and the third earl of 'x' (second issue). Saying John, the third earl of 'x' and William, the third earl of 'x' gets around that. FearÉIREANN 13:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with including first names now, I'm not actually sure what I was thinking... My query was about the current holder of a hereditary peerage. At present, these don't include "the", but are in the form 'Name, Nth Earl of X. Should this now be Name, the Nth Earl of X? --JRawle 14:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. In many ways that isn't a problem. The problem is that if one leaves out the the for women one uses the form of name they would have if divorced. '"Diana, Princess of Wales, '"Sarah, Duchess of York mean an ex-wife of the Princ e of Wales and an ex-wife of the Duke of York. The problem is that Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall actually implies the ex-wife of the Duke of Cornwall!!! The same problem does not arise with men. Charles, Prince of Wales does not imply . . . um . . . Charles, the ex-husband of the Prince of Wales. There is no problem going down that route if we wish, but the principle problem here is simply that the female name implies that someone is divorced when in reality they may not be. The simple inclusion of the avoids that. FearÉIREANN 16:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree with including the first names, or else users not as familiar with the holders of these titles (as some of us are...) would be unable to find them. I also agree with deceased holders of peerage titles, and their wives being listed at Name, Nth Duke of X/Name, Duchess of X and the current holders and their wives being Name, The Duke of X/Name/The Duchess of X. Maybe this will keep the articles from being moved and renamed every other day.Prsgoddess187 15:08, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, when I posted earlier I didn't include the lower case the for deceased peer(esse)s. FearEIREANN makes a good point.Prsgoddess187 18:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, JRawle you bring up a somewhat valid point about the titling of peers in general, however it does not really matter because there is not really and danger in say putting Prince Andrew, Duke of York where it is, because there isnt any danger of someone assuming that he is the ex-wife of the Duke of york. And of course this change would only effect current spouses, this is the whole point. Mac Domhnaill

Maybe this might arise when the law recognises gay marriages, but right now it isn't a major problem. But calling someone who should be Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall by a name that she would only have if she and Charles were to divorce, is a more immediate problem. We can worry about ex-husbands of royal dukes when that happens, which probably won't be for a while. FearÉIREANN 23:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, and that might happen sooner or later, and that would upset the applecart. But I would rather see Camilla as Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall. And for deceased consorts we could use Princess Alice, the Duchess of Gloucester. And of course Sarah, Duchess of York would stay where she is. What do you think?Prsgoddess187 23:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, not quite. Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester only became Princess Alice after her husband died. Before that she was just "the Duchess of Gloucester". Then her daughter-in-law became the Duchess of Gloucester and they had to find her a special title. It's a one-off, like "Diana, Princess of Wales" and "Sarah, Duchess of York". Deb 23:31, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You are right Deb, sorry she is the first person I thought of. Bad me!Prsgoddess187 23:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Prsgoddess187, I agree entirely. Except that Princess Alice is okay, because that is the style that she chose to use after her husbands death (otherwise I would agree with you). I think we can now all agree that all, living and current spouses will be at [name], [The Duchess of.....etc] Mac Domhnaill

I have moved all the current wives of British Royal peers, to [name], [The Duchess of....] as we seemed to have reached an agreement. Although I think that we still need to work out the details for deceased peers wives. Thanks Mac Domhnaill 02:22, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• • I was thinking, should we move Charles, Prince of Wales to Charles, The Prince of Wales and Andrew, Duke of York, Edward, Earl of Wessex, and {{Anne, Princess Royal]], to Name, The royal peer title. Prsgoddess187 00:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• • • That might be a wee bit more controversial. Deb 17:52, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Just an idea. No problem with not doing it. We have other things to worry about :)Prsgoddess187 20:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't necessary. The is required to distinguish divorced former consorts from current consorts. Including the for husbands would be pointless. No-one is going to think that Charles, Prince of Wales is the ex-husband of the Prince of Wales! But Camilla, Duchess of York is the name Camilla would have if she was divorced from Charles. As she hasn't the page had to be moved to a more correct version. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 20:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear, I seem to have missed this. Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall just looks absurd. And having a system which necessitates moving articles when people die is inherently bad. Proteus (Talk) 18:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually it is less absurd that using a name that Camilla would have if she and Charles divorced. We couldn't go on having Diana, Princess of Wales for Charles's first wife and Camilla, Duchess of York for his second. It was nonsensical and totally wrong. And of course we do already move wives of royalty when then die anyway (or we should be doing so) to the standard maiden name format. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 20:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In what sense was it "wrong"? Yes, it would be wrong if you wrote it on an envelope, but then so would Charles, Prince of Wales, Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, Augusta, Lady Gregory, and the vast majority of other articles on titled people, and yet no one's suggesting we call articles The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Westminster just because they're alive and we need (for some unknown reason) to use correct styles in article titles. Anyone who knew enough to assume that "Name, Duchesss of Somewhere" meant a divorced wife would certainly know Camilla wasn't divorced from Charles, so what on earth is the problem with putting her at a title that doesn't look stupid?

And I know you like the maiden name format, but no one else appears to, and it is rather silly. QETQM should be at Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and having her at Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon is just ridiculous. Proteus (Talk) 20:59, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How can you possibly say this? We have argued out the case of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon ten times or more, and the consensus has always been in favour of the current solution. I do believe in freedom to disagree, but not to misrepresent. Deb 17:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As I'm not the only one who is uneasy about the new page headings... surely the point is that on Wikipedia, the names of the pages used for these people are not supposed to be in the same form as their legal name, but contain both the full name and title of the person (separated by a comma). It doesn't matter if this isn't the correct form for someone who is alive and still married. For non-royal former wives of peers, it isn't the correct form for a widow or divorcee anyway as in those cases they don't include their surname (whereas on Wikipedia it's Forename Surname, Title). The correct title, form of address, or whatever, can be discussed in the body of the article. It isn't possible to convey this correctly and to include both the birth name and full title in the page heading.

As there aren't that many "royal peers", I'm not so worried about this. But I don't think we should go down this route for other peers' wives, where surnames are included in the page heading. --JRawle 12:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a good move, but I wouldn't have used a capital in "the" - that's inconsistent with other article titles except where it's the first word in the title. That's why it looks funny. Deb 17:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose this proposal for past peeresses, as contrary to usage, which is Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. There can be more than one Duchess of Devonshire at a time, btw, even if several of them are dowagers. Septentrionalis 17:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, several things..this really wouldnt be an issue for past peresses because if their dead their no longer The Duchess of...., and this was a move for the wives of royal peers, and as for opposing it if you noticed the dates your over a month to late. We agreed on this proposal and moved the nescesary pages. Mac Domhnaill 21:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I figured that people on this page would know where this article should be, as the "Queen" in the title looks odd to me. My initial impulse is to move it to Rosalie Gicanda, but should it say "of Rwanda"? I find royal/peerage titles baffling. She was actually the Queen Dowager, at a time when the Rwandan monarchy was abolished, if that changes things. Thanks, BanyanTree 14:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

She is dead, so yes it should be at simply Rosalie Gicanda, if she were alive, it would be correct. Mac Domhnaill

Thanks for your help! - BanyanTree 22:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Talk:List of Polish monarchs#Naming for a lengthy discussion on the issue of the titles of these pages. john k 19:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I (re-)activated Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Polish rulers), as a result of the problems mentioned (also by john) at Talk:List of Polish monarchs#Aftermath. As ye all know, I'm no expert in royals, so please help a hand, I'm sure users like Elonka and Calgacus etc would contribute to working out a solution too, if given enough support. --Francis Schonken 17:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I got it correctly (I'm really trying to understand this naming conventions, but am not sure if I do understand them), if a person is born crown prince, he is referred to as crown prince on Wikipedia, no matter whether the monarchy was abolished after he was born or if the country he's crown prince doesn't even exist any more, right? Now, if that's correct, then, how do we refer his descendants? For instance: Prince Peter of Yugoslavia. It is disputable if his father is crown prince (since it is disputable wether Kingdom of Yugoslavia existed in 1945), but, let's say Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia is a crown prince. Prince Peter of Yugoslavia was born on February 5, 1980. Kingdom of Yugoslavia didn't exist then. I does not exist now. Is Peter a prince? --Dijxtra 15:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, its a confusing point. The answer is simply put yes and no. He is not legally recognized in Yugoslavia as a Prince. However, none of the old German Royals and Aristocrats are recognized either, and they have continued to use and be styled as such ever since WWI. And Prince Peter's is an interesting situation, where unlike the exiled Greek Royals, they have been openly welcomed back into Yugoslavia (or what was), and even live in the old royal palace. So the answer to your question, is that yes Peter is, a Prince (although his title is not legally recognized). Mac Domhnaill 20:10, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If he's not legally recognised a prince, how can he be one? He does not enjoy the rank, or title of one, does not get to wear a coronet, his family have no legal nor constitutional power - in short, he is not a prince, he has only the style/name. Pretenders are not royalty. See Caroline, Princess of Hanover. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.188.14 (talk • contribs)

I have just been on the Yugoslav royal pages - what IS going on?? Whilst on the Hanover pages it makes quite clear the Hanover throne does not exist anymore (yet still refers to them as Prince/ss and HRH by courtesy) the Yugoslav ones treat the Yugoslav ex-Royal family as if they were still on the throne (even saying "Prince X is third in line to the throne of Yugoslavia") - how can that be so when that throne does not exist anymore? It's misleading and needs to be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.188.14 (talk • contribs)

Well clearly what I meant was misunderstood. He is most definatley not legally a Prince, although he will always be styled as one, I have always been aware of that. And the Yugoslavs should probably be treated differently than the Hanoverians, as Yugoslavia welcomed them bakc as the Royal Family, the people there treat them as royals, and they live in the royal palace. And i very clearly stated that he is not legally recognized as a Prince, this doesnt mean hes not. Say Jane Brown marries John Smith, she may not legally change her name but she is still Mrs. John Smith, or Mrs. Jane Smith. Even though this is not legally her name. Just because his title has no legal standing does not mean he isnt. Mac Domhnaill 20:22, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So he is in fact not a prince but a courtesy prince? It needs to be acknowledged on every Yugoslav page he's a prince by courtesy only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.188.14 (talk • contribs)

There is no such thing as a "courtesy prince". Either you are or you aren't. A person is a prince by birthright, not by state decision. As the son of a prince, this guy clearly is a prince, under traditional dynastic criteria. The only issue is whether he is referred to as such. In the absence of a monarchy, being a prince carries no constitutional status. Some republics tell princes not to use the titles. Some republics out of courtesy allow them to use it. Serbia allows the prince to use his title out of courtesy. Even if it didn't he would still be a prince, just not be allowed to call himself one in Serbia. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 00:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I think you'll find that is incorrect. A monarch is no longer a monarch if he has no sovereignty - deposed kings are usually referred to as ex-King so-and-so, e.g. ex-King Constantine of Greece, who by courtesy can be styled King of Greece (but he ISN'T king of Greece as there is no THRONE of Greece). I don't see how if legally he is not recognised as a prince he can still be one. If the government doesn't recognise him as one, who does (other than by courtesy?) They recognise themselves? They are just ordinary citizens by Yugoslav law. You cannot say a title exists if it is not recognised by law. What, exactly, is Prince Peter referred to in Yugoslav law? (NOT styled) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.243.180 (talk • contribs)

...and as for a prince being a prince by birthright & not state decision, why was William III of England king? Because he was invited by the British government to take the crown, he certainly wasn't king by birthright. That just goes to show that the state has the last say on these matters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.243.203 (talk • contribs)

I have to say that many of you seem to completely lack understanding of what a Prince really is. Jtdirl is completely right, and you cannot compare a King to a Prince. As the title of King is never by birthright, while the title of Prince almost always is (unless through marriage, or the title is bestowed upon someone.) As well please do not use Caroline, Princess of Hanover, as an example, she is a princess by birthright and her titles are legally used in Monaco. Her husband, step-children and youngest daughter are all examples, but not her. And coud you all please sign your comments. Mac Domhnaill 23:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

...so how come James II's descendents were not all titled prince and aren't recognised as such (and hardly referred to as such by the british government? If a king isn't a king by birthright, what is he king by virtue of? I'm not being rude, I genuinely want to know answers to these questions. Can you please tell me who recognises Prince Peter as a prince if it is not the government.--130.88.188.14 00:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok....a King is the King by virtue of succeeding a previous king (being king is not a birthright, but being the heir is a birthright)the office of a King or sovereign is a constitional one and needs to be defined by a government. Constantine II of Greece, is still a king because he became King when Greece still had a monarchy, the title of King is one that is held for life (unless lost through abdication, which Constantine did not do), whilist no one is obligated to refer to him as King Constantine after the office is abolished, he will be a King until his death, although he is not The King. As for what you are saying with all the descendents of James II not being Princes, this is because the British government and Royal family have guidlines as to who is a prince by birthright (in the UK this is all children and grandchildren of a monarch in the male line), in Saudi Arabia all the male line descendts are Princes or Princesses (there are thousands of Saudi Royals). Each Royal Family/ House or government sets up its own rules as to who is a Prince merely by birthright. According to the rules established in Yugoslavia by Peters family all the children and grandchildren in the male line are Princes or Princesses. This is why Peter is a Prince by birthright. His father will be forever the Crown Prince, as it is a title that he holds from birthright when it was an established constitutional office. Each Royal family/governemnt or constition has its own set of guidelines as to is a Royal merely by birth. Since the Yugoslav monarchy was abolished, it is up to Peter's family to set those guidlines, as it is in Hanover, Prussia Austria etc. where monarchies have been abolished. As I have been trying to say no one, needs to recognize him as a Prince for him to be one. If you still have any questions dont hesitate to ask either here or on my talk page. Mac Domhnaill 02:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What are the Yugoslavs princes of exactly? They can't surely be of Yugoslavia? Would anybody be required to kneel/curtsey to them? I don't understand how if no-one needs to recognise him as a prince he still is one, that surely means anybody could style themselves a prince without being recognised? I could believe what you are saying but can you please provide evidence for your points. I'm not saying you are wrong, but I am not saying I am wrong either as it is important in these matters to have supporting evidence. What is Prince Peter referred to legally in Yugoslavia? Surely he is just a normal citizen in his own country? The way I see it is this - I'm not saying I am right, but it seems this way: Yugoslav monarchy is dead, therefore monarchical titles are dead. The sovereign is the fount of honour in the royal family since all royal titles derive from him or from being related to him. There is no throne of Yugoslavia, no pageantry, no crown, no legal authority attributed to the royal family. The former royals no longer have precedence over their subjects, they are normal citizens. Monarchical titles have been abolised, therefore the rank and office of "Prince of Yugoslavia" does not exist; they are not legally recognised, there are no letters patent deeming them so, no laws referring to them in the constitution. The ex-royal family is styled as Prince/sses but not titled - i.e. Diana Spencer when Diana, Princess of Wales was not The Princess of Wales (or a princess of any kind) since by law there was no holder of that office. So whilst he may be referred to as HRH Prince Peter, this is courtesy - legally he is a plain Mr. The whole prince/ss thing is a matter of family tradition but has absolutely no validity. They are styling themselves royal when in fact they no longer are royal since they have no sovereign power - it is like the descendents of James II calling themselves Kings of England - they are most certainly not (though you could argue they are "by birthright"). Constantine II is referred to as King of Greece by courtesy, in reality he is ex-King Constantine of Greece, as there is no The King of Greece just as there is no The King of Yugoslavia Can you please give me a definition of a prince - yes he derives his power from birthright (by virtue of being related to the monarch) - but when the monarch's title doesn't exist anymore? If they are Princes of Yugoslavia yet their own country does not recognise them as such, how can they hold that title? Princess of Hanover is different since she is a princess of Monaco and holds the surname "of Hanover" styles herself Princess of Hanover when in fact that title does not exist except as a legal surname. Monaco recognises this style but by courtesy (it has not taken legal action to create her a Princess of Hanover, but merely refers to her as such). The same is true of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester - she was not "Princess Alice" but "The Princess Henry" through marriage, yet combined her title with her name to produce Princess Alice when no legislation was passed to make her so. George VI made his grandchildren Charles and Anne prince/princess of the UK by letters patent i.e. they could not have been prince/ss without letters patent i.e. they were not prince/ss without legal confirmation. Princes of Yugoslavia have no legal confirmation - they style themselves as princes but do not hold the rank and are legally titled as normal citizens.

Please can you tell me why all of the above is wrong (and please don't answer "he just IS a prince" because there's no evidence for that), and also if you think any of my points above are valid. What was the legislation enacted deposing the monarchy? Thankyou. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.243.186 (talk • contribs)

Ok...just because Yugoslavia does not exist does not mean he cannot be a Prince of it. He is a Prince of Yugoslavia. Prussia and Hanover do not exist as independent nations anymore, and their princes are still tyled that way. No, no one would be required to kneel, bow or acknowledge him as a Prince, but he is one. You also cannot bring Princess Alice into this story. British Royal title systems are different than those of Yugoslavia. And yes Constantine is only refffered to as King of Greece as a courtesy, but he is a king. I have explained everything I can and dont feel to be repeating myself, it seems to me you cannont comprehend the concept, that because he is not legally recognized he is not a Prince. Which he is regardless of what the govt says. Mac Domhnaill 02:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would buy what you say except that you do not use any evidence for this - I asked specifically to not just say "he IS a prince" and asked other questions such as what Prince Peter legally referred to etc. I'm afraid I don't understand the concept because there isn't sufficient evidence for it. Please PLEASE answer my questions thoroughly and don't just excuse this case by saying it is "different". I'm not disagreeing with you, just questioning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.188.14 (talk • contribs)

This essay by Guy Stair Sainty, while it primarily deals with the right of dethroned or exiled rulers to grant membership in their sovereign orders, suggests that one of the premises above, to wit, that the legal abolition of the monarchy extinguishes the fons honorum, is incorrect. Choess 03:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some Greek royalty and a void in guidelines

I would like to raise the subject again, this time regarding the even more controversial children of the deposed Greek royal family. I am trying to have a pre-emptive discussion on the matter as I can see there exists no guideline regarding children of deposed monarchs' children, and the ongoing heated debate in the Anne-Marie of Greece article indicates that even more heated discussions could arise regarding them. I am reffering to the following:

• Princess Maria Olympia of Greece and Denmark
• Prince Constantine Alexios of Greece and Denmark
• Prince Achileas Andreas of Greece and Denmark
• Prince Odysseas Kimon of Greece and Denmark
• Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark
• Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark

All of the above have been born after 1974 when the monarchy was abolished in Greece. Surely they are princes and princesses of Denmark. But are they princes/esses of Greece? I am not argueing weather they are styled as such in royal courts in Europe. I am just questioning the titling of the articles. I would go for it and straightforwardly request a move en masse, but as this could cause problems, I thought I'd bring it up here first.

Now, commenting to what has been said above: to say that X is prince of Y, just because he IS (and excuse the harsh language) is absurd. Nothing is true just because it is. This train of thought is logically twisted and cannot hold. The aformentioned article by Guy Stair Sainty is of course one point of view but that does not in itself validate the argument, since (at least to my better knowledge) there is no such thing as "royalty science". I mean if one says that "The Earth is round because Neil Armstrong observed it" that cannot be denied, it is science. But one can refuse to accept Mr Sainty's analysis without being either inconsistent or paradoxal, just as one can refuse to accept the existence of Classes as Marx described them..

In my understanding they are not princes/esses of Greece. In my understanding of politics, a title is conferred upon individuals by society, under the terms of a Social Contract that permits that. I can accept that Wikipedia articles of deposed monarchs and their immediate relatives are, for the shake of historical accuracy, named with their former title affixes to their names, as they were indeed at some time kings, princes and princesses. But for people who never reigned, such as the ones in the above list, it is IMHO not correct (and in fact misleading) to use monarchical titles. I would also like to point out the following part of this guideline page, point 6 of the first section:

Do not apply an ordinal in an article title to a pretender, i.e., someone who has not reigned.

Are not all the above pretenders according to the guideline's definition of pretender? If so, they should not have the titles affixed to the titles of the corresponding articles. Of course it should be mentioned in the article body that they are known as such among other royal courts, but the problem is with the naming of the articles.

I sincerely hope we can produce a guideline out of this discussion, explicitly for such cases, as the Yugoslavian and the Greek former royal families. --Michalis Famelis 18:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ordinals are Roman numbers... I, II, III, IV, V, VI and so on... So no, that rule does not apply to the princes and princesses, who are not pretenders. Standard has been to accord to former royalty the titles which they are best known. Thus we have people called princes or princesses of Greece and Denmark, just as we have articles for people after 1918 called princes and princesses of Prussia, so on and so forth. Dynasts of former royal houses almost always use their titles socially and also have them as names by which they are best known. Therefore, they are titled as such in their articles with footnotes explaining why the titles aren't legally recognized, not the equivalent of material worthy of a whole different article in the case of Queen Anne Marie. Charles 18:39, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse my bad understanding of English! My argument about the ...ordinals is therefore null and void. Please consider the rest of the post. --Michalis Famelis

What is there to consider?

1. You have your information on pretenders all wrong. They're not pretenders. Prince Pavlos will be the pretender (ie, the claimant) when his father dies. The rest aren't.
2. It is standard worldwide for people who are decended from former royal families in a princely line to still be called prince or princess. Burundi has not had a king in decades, yet there still are princes from Burundi. Germany has not had a monarchy since 1918, yet not merely does it still have German princes. They are referred to as such when they meet the Federal President or Chancellor. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies has not existed for well over a century, yet there are still princes and princesses of their royal house, referred to as such in Italy. All that's happening here is that a few Greek republicans are trying to fight their cause through Wikipedia. All Wikipedia is doing is doing what the rest of the world does. It refers to descendants of the last King of Greece as princes of Greece and Denmark, which is how the rest of the planet refers to them. If that irks Greek republicans, tough. We seem to get a lot of POV-pushers, from Irish republicans trying to push a pro-IRA agenda to Portuguese monarchists trying to push their agenda, from promoters of internet myths trying to push the myths on WP to pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian supporters trying to push their agendas, and hosts of others. The response in all cases is simple: take your agendas elsewhere. We stick by NPOV. If the rest of the world refer to exiled Greek royalty using certain name structures, if the rest of the world refers to internet myths as internet myths, if the rest of the planet calls descendents of the King of Burundi in one way then we do too. To do otherwise would be to breach NPOV. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 19:13, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was not trying to push a POV, I was asking for a clarification, as the discussion above regarding the Yugoslavian formers was not illuminating. I asked in a civil manner and expected an equally civil answer, not a lecture on how WP is rampaged by POV pushing. Apart from that thanks for the information on other former royalty. --Michalis Famelis 21:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have considered the post as I do every post. The "office", so to speak, of prince/princess no longer does exist. But the titles exist as courtesy titles for a formerly sovereign family. It really doesn't matter what the Greek government or the Greek people want to call them, sad as it may seem to some. The fact of the matter is, internationally Anne-Marie (as obscure as she actually is) is known as Queen Anne Marie of Greece/the Hellenes. After Constantine, Anne-Marie, Paul (Pavlos) and Marie-Chantal die, their titles die with them. However, the titles of princelings of a royal house exist by courtesy so long as they use them and as so long as others refer to them as such. If absolutely no one referred to Anne-Marie as queen, then she would not be titled as such. Charles 18:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It does not create original scholarship; it merely gathers together what has already been written elsewhere. It's not for Wikipedia to determine the validity or invalidity of anything. See WP:NOR.

In scholarly works (I'm a university librarian, I know), the male-line descendants of families which formerly reigned in a country are commonly referred to by the titles and styles which were accorded to cadet members of those families when they were still reigning. The Bonapartes have not reigned in France since 1870, but the living members of that family are commonly given the title "prince" in published works. The Bourbons have not reigned in France for even longer, but the living members of that family are also commonly given the title "prince" (even though they did not have that title in French when they were reigning).

The basic naming convention for Wikipedia is "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" (see WP:NC(CN)). If a descendant of a formerly reigning family is commonly referred to NOT by the titles which were used by his family, then I have no objection whatsover to him being cited on Wikipedia without his titles. The best example is Otto von Habsburg who is sometimes known as "Archduke Otto of Austria", but more commonly as "Otto von Habsburg".

In the case of the children and grandchildren of Constantine and Anne-Marie, they are most commonly referred to in English with the title of "prince". Some people might not think that appropriate, but that is what the print record shows. As an encyclopedia (and not a work of original research) Wikipedia has to follow what others do - not come up with a new solution. Noel S McFerran 19:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can a guideline be writen that states this explicity about such cases, so as to avoid further complications with articles such as the ones in the list in my original post? --Michalis Famelis 21:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion on the issue, is that wer can use for Constantines family the titles of Queen and King, (King Constantine II) but they cannot use the teritory suffix as the country were they used to provide their royal services has exiled them and has a new constitution that indicates that the givernment system is a Parliamentary Democracy. The titles (King, Crown, Prince, Queen) can be used outside Greece but everywhere they should be without the "of Greece" part that also missleads about the existance of Crown Republic in Greece. ALEKSANDAR 00:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot unilaterally turn around precedent. What in your mind they "should" do is not how things are done. Charles 00:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aleksandar, you are slightly offtopic. The question was about their grandchildren, those that were born after the establishment of the republic, not weather the "of Greece" is valid or not. And more importantly this is not about the former Greek royals, but about deposed royal families in general. --Michalis Famelis 00:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Current upset in Norway

Just to show that this is no mere academic debate: The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has a report [1] that some Greek immigrants to Norway are offended that the list of baptismal sponsors for the new son of the Crown Prince of Norway (available on the website of the Norwegian Royal Family) [2] lists "His Royal Highness Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece". The conflict on Wikipedia reflects a conflict in society. There is a practice which has been used in the past (although not without opposition) and continues to be used in the present which some people think just shouldn't be. The challenge on Wikipedia is that some of these people think that only one side of the debate should be presented (i.e. we should state the case of the Greek constitution, and that's the one and only and final word on the topic). That's not intellectually honest. Noel S McFerran 02:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem being that page titles must choose one or the other; article text can and should explain all the choices. So far I am not convinced, btw, that either Prince or of Greece and Denmark is most common usage in these cases, and would appreciate actual evidence in English. Septentrionalis 03:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually exceedingly difficult to find English language sources which DON'T refer to them with the title "prince" and the designation "of Greece" or (less frequently) "of Greece and Denmark". The Norwegian baptismal list is evidence of this use. I have already provided footnotes on the Anne-Marie of Greece page listing other occasions when she is given the title "queen" and the designation "of Greece" or "of the Hellenes". I think that it's up to the "don't use prince" party to provide some evidence for that. Noel S McFerran 05:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How would you refer to Constantine's children and those of his sons, then? I've only ever seen them referred to by their princely title: they do not have a surname (having commenced reigning back before surnames were used in Europe), and they have never used any of their dynastic titles in lieu of a surname except "Prince/ss of Greece (and Denmark). But why would it be more appropriate for one of those to be attributed to them than "of Greece"? Their hereditary titles include "Prince of Denmark" "Prince of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderborg-Glucksborg" and "Count of Oldenburg". But these are all currently existing localities over which their branch long ago ceased to reign. So they do what most royals do, current and ex: use the dynastic title with which they have been most recently associated.

The real point is this: The reason members of this family are noteworthy is because of their association with the former monarchy of Greece. Otherwise, none of them would have articles devoted to them, with the possible exceptions of Anne-Marie (who is sister of a reigning monarch), Sophia (who is wife of a reigning monarch), and Philip (who is husband of a reigning monarch). But the fact that three of them are married to members of reigning families is 1. noteworthy and 2. not a coincidence. The fact that Greece is now a republic and that some Greeks want to disassociate them from the Greece of today -- enough to draw public attention to their antipathy -- is itself part of why they deserve mention in WP. But they must be mentioned recognizably -- yet virtually no one, in or out of Greece, could tell you what their surname is -- including they themselves. Thus, by simple default they must be allowed to use the titles which associate them with Greece in WP -- they are unknown otherwise. Nor is this unique to the Constantine's brood. There are lots of bios on ex-royalty in WP for the sole reason that they were once associated with a now-defunct monarchy. Just as some of their families' ex-subjects want to efface any hint of current affiliation with them, there are lots of historians, genealogists, celeberity-watchers, nostalgists, aristocrats and, yes, monarchists, who want to track their post-monarchic doings -- or these "royal" WP articles wouldn't be proliferating. So the very thing that alienates some people from them attracts others: they were once exalted, living symbols of nations that have changed regimes. If they aren't going to be excluded from WP we'd better develop a convention to accomodate them and minimize offense to those that object to their having ever existed.Lethiere 07:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please, see above #Polish monarchs --Francis Schonken 17:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have quickly scanned the archives' contents boxes for discussions on the following, so apologies in advance if I've missed anything.

Does anyone else find that "Saint" written out in full – especially in article titles – impedes their reading speed?  Or, to put it another way, might there be a consensus to prefer "St." over "Saint" in articles (other than Saint itself)...?

Also, I appreciate the observation that using the abbreviation "St" rather than "St." (or "Mr" instead of "Mr." etc.) aids reading when the text is in a non-proportional font. In a proportional font, however, such as that used on the Wikipedia (Wikimedia) pages, periods within sentences look less obtrusive to me, so I happily include them. Do people think this should be upheld as a policy, particularly in article titles?

Thanks, David Kernow 10:23, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The use of periods is linked to different types of English (American English, British English, Hiberno-English, etc. So the rules on English usage covers it. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 13:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Qualifiers not between brackets:

If a qualifier is used in the title of a page where the content is, it is never abbreviated (apart from Jr./Sr. ...), so: "Saint", not "St." nor "St".

See that same section of that same guideline for several examples of "saints", some of which with the "Saint" title in the page name, a lot of others without (e.g. Augustine of Hippo).

See also: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive6#Mount, Mt., Mt and Saint, St., St, where I learnt that the difference between "St." and "St" is also US/UK difference. Another reason to avoid abbreviations where possible.

For landmarks & geographical names however often the abbreviation is used (e.g. St. Augustine, Florida in the US, but in the UK without dot: St Albans; If no "local variety" of English can be defined, of course again non-abbreviated: Saint Petersburg for the Russian town).

See also wikipedia:Naming conventions (Western clergy)#Buildings named after people. --Francis Schonken 10:50, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your thoughts, Francis. Wikipedia Talk:Naming conventions (people) seems to indicate that a consensus over this kind of policy would be difficult to find, so I think I'll plod on merrily. I don't believe trying to avoid all abbreviations is necessarily a useful approach; whilst "Saint David", "Saint Petersburg" etc. are doubtlessly correct, I and I suspect many have become so used to seeing and reading "St. David", "St. Petersburg", etc. (with the periods/full-stops included when in proportional fonts) that the former look odd, especially within prose. I'm aware, though, that reading habits are necessarily highly subjective and that I don't know how representative my suspicions are.

Presumably all these "Naming conventions (X)" have at some point been through some kind of establishment-by-(small-sized-)consensus process...?

Best wishes, David Kernow 19:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please help completing the table below. The table is on a separate page, that opens when clicking the "edit" link below.

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Polish rulers) is the place for discussions on the English Wikipedia page names of individual monarchs. --Francis Schonken 09:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Table

This came up in regards to the proposed move of Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst: we have no policy on the naming of articles on members of the German nobility. I confess that my own knowledge of the German nobility rests on a shaky foundation, but I'm going to craft a proposal nonetheless and invite criticism.

Titles of German nobility are part of a holder's legal name and should be included in the article title, subject to the following constraints. Families which were formerly sovereign rulers, or who were mediatized Holy Roman Empire nobility, or who were otherwise members of the Hochadel should have their title included in the article in the original German: Chlodwig Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Maximilian Reichsfreiherr von Weichs. Individuals who ruled as sovereigns during their life time should be referred to by the convention Name Ordinal, Title: Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine.

Lower nobles who gained higher titles after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire should be referred to by their most common name: Otto von Bismarck not Otto Fürst von Bismarck. Non-sovereign titles granted for life only, such as Duke of Lauenburg, should not be mentioned in the article title.

Members of the lower nobility who are commonly known by a title should have that title included in the article title, in the original German: Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz not Colmar von der Goltz or Baron Colmar von der Goltz. Individuals who hail from Baltic regions and have baronial rank should be referred to as Baron, not Freiherr, when appropriate (e.g. Friedrich Baron von Holstein.

I suspect I've made something of a mess here, but it's a messy subject. Mackensen (talk) 18:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The argument about legal name sounds good, but is some cases historians will have commonly used a anglizied name, which then should be the main article.

What tickles me in this regard is that Kaiser Wilhelm does not get translated while his father Frederick does (at least in the last book that I read). Possibly William is to soft a name for an enemy. As far as Wikipedia is concerned Frederick_William_IV_of_Prussia is a bit confusing with the two readings of the name in the same article - English at the top - German in the info box Agathoclea 18:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I find William II quite common, although not universal Septentrionalis 20:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mackensen - this proposal seems like a good starting point...except...Why Otto von Bismarck and Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz? This seems inconsistent. It is also worth noting that noble titles have been officially part of the name since 1919. I'm not sure how one should describe their status before that. It's also worth noting that Austrian nobility all officially lost their titles in 1919, but many still use them. The whole subject is rather a mess. john k 19:01, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Goltz came from an established family which had carried Freiherr for quite some time, whereas I believe Bismarck was born simply von Bismarck. I would make the same argument with regards to Bernhard von Bülow. I admit that this is an inherently subjective way of looking at it. Mackensen (talk) 20:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So? Disraeli is (quite properly) under Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, which title didn't exist before he earned it either. Septentrionalis 20:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The situation isn't quite the same though--the British peerage doesn't make these kinds of distinctions (thankfully). Mackensen (talk) 13:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe German nobles acting in capacities as appointed or elected politicians (chancellors, prime ministers) should be under article names that do not include titles, with the exception of those who came from sovereign families. It becomes messy referring to "graf von this" but "count von that" or some other bizarre mixture of titles and prepositions. Charles 03:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What about Otto Graf Lambsdorff? He, and some other elected politicians, are known by their title. And I'm still uncertain if Hohenlohe counts as a sovereign family... john k 15:17, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would be fine if the other articles were titled Chlodwig Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst and Otto Fürst von Bismarck. Hohenlohe certainly wasn't sovereign at the time when Chlodwig was the chancellor and prime minister. At best the family was mediatized. Charles 23:10, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If we're going to use the title, let's use English; and the English here is Prince Bismarck.Septentrionalis 20:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not using the title eliminates that issue. The English is not "Prince Bismarck". That is merely an Anglo-American informal reference. Charles 20:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the family were not sovereign rulers of a state. But the whole idea of mediatized families is that, even though they no longer rule a state, the family itself remains sovereign. At least, that's my understanding of it. john k 07:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mediatized families were, at one point, sovereign but then were subject to another monarch (be it the emperor, a king, a grand duke or a duke. The House of Hohenlohe was such a case; they cannot remain a sovereign house. The only difference between the mediatized families and those who were simply noble was that a mediatized family of the lowest title ranked higher than a simple noble of the highest title (such as a duke of a never-sovereign family would beoutranked by a count of a formerly sovereign family. Sovereignity would be a major issue. Charles 19:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hm, proposal by Mackensen looks good to me. Although this is English Wikipedia, I think we should use the German language titles, in order to avoid conflicts with the translation. For example, there were "Freiherr" titles, which would translate as "Baron". ok, but there were also nobles with the German title "Baron" (same thing) but this differentiation should be made. Also some titles cannot be translated, such as "Edler" or "Ritter". Me and Charles also had some talk about how to translate "Reichsfreiherr" properly, there is also the title of "Reichsgräfin" for example... since we couldn't agree on the proper translation, I think what we could agree on is to keep the original title and leave the translation issue for later... Maybe titles starting from Archduke, Grand Duke, up to Prince can be left in English.... the rest in German? Gryffindor 11:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly object to this, as an effort to circumvent WP:UE, which is consensus. If Gryffindor wishes to repeal or amend that policy, he should address its talkpage. Septentrionalis 04:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good enough. —Nightstallion (?) 12:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Septentrionalis, I don't think you understood my argument correctly. I support using English whenever possible. However how would you translate titles that are not translatable? or where disagreement exists? If you are familiar with German noble titles, then you understand the complexity in using English in all cases, which can easily result in misinformation. Gryffindor 13:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do know something about German noble titles: which Reichsgraefin? What "misinformation" do you see in

• Using "Countess" in the article title,
• "Reichsgräfin" in the first line,
• and "unmediatized countess" somewhere appropriate in the article text? Septentrionalis 01:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reichsgraefin simply means countess, the reichs- only indicates its origin as a title of the HRE. It can be spoken as "countess of the (Holy Roman) Empire" when referring to the title without the following name. No one would call a Reichsgraefin von X the "countess X of the HRE" or the "imperial countess X of the HRE" but merely the "countess of X". Charles 01:22, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some google-searching and book-checking reveals that "Prince Bismarck" and "Fürst von Bismarck" are common constructions. In light of this, and in the interests of a more uniform (and sensible) policy, I propose to do away with the differentiation between newer and older titles. Therefore, the article on Bismarck would be located at Otto Fürst von Bismarck (on the other hand, in Bismarck's specific case, I would be receptive to the argument that most common name trumps this usage). We would still exclude lifetime only titles such as Duke of Lauenberg. Mackensen (talk) 00:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fuerst von Bismarck is a correct construction when used in German conversation. Prince Bismarck is pushing it at best and ought to be avoided unless using direct quotations. Referring to Bismarck simple as Bismarck is fine enough. Otto von Bismarck as a title is fine as is. Charles 01:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm perfectly happpy with Otto von Bismarck. In the general case, I would prefer to use Prince in the article title and let the text sort out whether Prinz or Fuerst is being translated (as most articles seem to do). Septentrionalis 01:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think all elected German/Prussian chancellors who were noble should be at "forename von/zu surname", unless from a sovereign house such as Prince Max of Baden. Charles 01:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why we need a special convention for chancellors; and Prince Hohenlohe is usually so called. Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst sounds about right. Septentrionalis 02:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst is the only non-royal chancellor who is at an article with the title of prince. Otto von Bismarck isn't even articled as Prince Otto von Bismarck, and even he was called Prince xxx (in this case, Bismarck). Mixing the languages of titles and prepositions is bad form anyway. Charles 03:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't necessarily make it right. I prefer to err on the side of caution when rendering German into English, particularly when every authority I've found on German noble titles says Fürst should not be translated as "Prince." Besides, there's the question of consistency. What would we translate Reichsfreiherr to? I suppose it could be "Baron of the Realm," but that sounds odd. Mackensen (talk) 03:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reichsfreiherr is translated as Baron, when used with the following name. Reichsfreiherrin are collectively "Barons of the Empire". Charles 03:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is how to handle Reichsfreiherr in English. If consistency is the paramount objective, Chlodwig, Prince Hohenlohe is probably the best. Septentrionalis 03:37, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I still maintain that Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst is a better choice. Bismarck isn't at Otto, Prince Bismarck. Charles 04:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Septentrionalis my question (which you still don't seem to understand) is how would an article look like with a title that is difficult to translate (example: Edler, Ritter) and titles that are very cumbersome as in "Reichsfreiherr". So what would the article's name Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein be in English? "Baron of the Empire Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein"? That's why I think it better to leave all titles up to Graf in German, and starting from "Graf" they can be left in English. Gryffindor 21:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC) ps: "Chlodwig, Prince Hohenlohe" is factually wrong and not a good idea anyways, I think the format Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst comes closest to being correct.[reply]

I am not proposing to move it; I do not regard consistency as particularly valuable here. I made a suggestion to those who do. Septentrionalis 18:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edler and Ritter are more like qualities than titles. Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein (von und zu dem Stein) is simple Baron of Stein. As I had indicated earlier, the Reichsfreiherr is simply a baron. A collection of Reichsfreiherren are Barons or the Empire. Reichs- is a quality, not a real title component. Btw, Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst would be a better choice. He was firstly a chancellor than a prince. Charles 21:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ritter and Edler were full-fledged noble titles with full noble rights just like Graf and Freiherr, I have never heard of "qualities" that were given by the emperor or king, you may check the Almanach de Gotha for reference. A Reichsfreiherr is an Imperial Baron or a Baron of the Empire, not just a normal baron. It can be shortformed as "Baron", yes, just like "Freiherr" can be translated as Baron as well. However the full translation would be either Imperial Baron or Baron of the Empire. Where are you getting this assumption from that "Reichsfreiherr" is only a quality? I have checked for you on the Almanach de Gotha, I quote: "The Nobility of the Holy Roman Empire - The titles of Duke, Prince, Count, Baron, Knight and Noble of the Empire were conferred by Imperial patent. [...] The Imperial nobility enjoys a more elevated status than the nobilities of the German successor states and, indeed, of the Italian states. [..] The ranks of the latter are as follows: Duke (Reichsherzog) - variously Serene Highness or High Born (Durchlaucht or Hochgeboren) Prince (Reichsfürst) - variously Serene Highness or High Born (Durchlaucht or Hochgeboren) Markgraf [6] LandGraf [7] AltGraf RheinGraf WildGraf [8] ReichsGraf Reichsfreiherr Reichsritter Reichsherr." [4] Now note, this concerns only the Imperial Nobility of the Holy Roman Empire. We have then the nobility of the smaller German states as well as Prussia and Austria-Hungary, which had different ranks again as well. But to assert that imperial noble titles were simple "qualities" is nowhere confirmed in the Gotha. Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst is not a good idea, since Wikipedia clearly allows titles for nobles of the blood. He was born and died a prince, who happened to be chancellor at some point in his life, see Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury for reference. Gryffindor 22:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC) ps: Charles you also once pointed out that you thought that the name "Bourbon-Parma" was wrong and should be different. I can only point out to you the homepage of the Royal House of Bourbon-Parma which clearly states their name as such http://www.borbonparma.org/ and also concerning the "Bourbon-Two Sicilies" here is the homepage of the Royal House of Bourbon Two Sicilies http://www.realcasadiborbone.it[reply]

Otto von Bismarck was a count, a prince and later a duke. How come he isn't at Prince Otto von Bismarck? Bernhard von Bülow was a prince. Why is he not at Prince Bernhard von Bülow? Undisputedly untitled nobles also exist --- with full-fledged noble rights. Who made them noble? All the Reichs- in a title meant was creation of the title by the Holy Roman Emperor. Sort of akin to the trademark symbol appended to the end of a brandname... All it means in English is a German noble whose title was derived from the HRE. What you quoted talks about the titles of Duke, Count, etc... Not "Imperial Duke", "Imperial Count", etc. It's akin to the British peerage in a sense... There are the peers of the United Kingdom, etc. But no one says "Irish Duke" of "Duke of Ireland of Leinster". Keep your PS to my talk page. This is a discussion of the German nobility and please keep it on topic. The UK royal website is riddled with errors. I don't expect more from a defunct royal house. There are princes of Parma, etc, but not Princes of Bourbon-Parma. Charles 22:44, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can find out what people are called in English by looking them up in English texts. For Stein, there are four choices actually used in English: H. F. K., Baron Stein; HFK, Baron von Stein; HFK, Baron vom und zum Stein; HFK, Freiherr von und zum Stein. I do not defend the second (which is an error, rather than a translation); I think the third is most common. The fact that his family was ennobled by the Emperor can be mentioned in the article, if relevant. Septentrionalis 18:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So Charles you are saying you have information that the UK royal website, the official homepage of the House of Bourbon-Parma and the Almanach de Gotha obviously missed or got totally wrong? Gryffindor 17:17, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering if there was a convention for the naming of Grand Ducal consorts. We have Princess Augusta of Cambridge, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine; but then there is Josephine-Charlotte of Belgium, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. Should their articles be titled in the manner of queen consorts (Mary of Teck) or not? Just want to make it all uniform. Any ideas/comments?? Prsgoddess187 00:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I personally believe the the consorts of sovereigns, whether they be duchies on up to empires, should be titled under their birth name sans the title. The Hessian Grand Duchess ought to have the article about her titled Alice of the United Kingdom. Likewise, the Mecklenburgish Grand Duchess ought to have the article about her titled Augusta of Cambridge. Charles 02:19, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that probably for the sake of unity we should also have them at their maiden names. This would avoid any confusion in the future. I myself was also wondering about Grand Ducal consorts, it seems that they are not all titled consistently. But yea, Id have to say that probably all deceased consorts should be at their maiden names. Mac Domhnaill 03:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Listing them all under their maiden names is a bad idea in my opinion, there is already controversy about Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. I think it better to go with the titles, otherwise it would create even more confusion. Gryffindor 15:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I respectfully disagree. It seems to me that the controversy is that she was known for a long time as The Queen Mother, a title which many people wrongly believe was invented solely for her. People these days frequently refer to Mary of Teck, Alexandra of Denmark, Catherine of Aragon, etc. I was glad that consistency was being brought to article names dealing with various royals. Charles 19:49, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with Charles, we have argued the case of the Queen Mother many times. It is only because she was known as such for a long time. It's not going to make sense for generations in the future to call her Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Maiden names are the more accurate, preferred and uniform way to go. Mac Domhnaill 03:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To return to the subject of grand dukes, I think the point here is that the title of princess with which some of these consorts were born is (rightly or wrongly) regarded as being in some way superior to the title they acquired by marriage. This brings into play the wikipedia naming convention about using the highest title a person ever used. I'm not saying I agree with that perception, but I think that's what's behind it. Deb 20:32, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deb, on the pecking order, Grand Duchess is a title that, historically, ranks just behind kings and queens but above sovereign dukes. A princess who is such as the agnate of a king ranks behind a Grand Duke, who is a sovereign. Becoming a Grand Duchess is a promotion of sorts, much like a princess becoming a queen. There was a farily amusing quote by a Grand Duchess of Russia on the matter of her title and that of a "mere" princess. Even then though, a Russian Grand Duchess isn't sovereign and would come after a Grand Duchess consort. The perceived difference between Russian Grand Duchess and princesses exists, but it is real and solid between grand ducal consorts and mere princesses. Since Grand Dukes were indeed sovereign, their consorts fall within the established wiki guidelines for "Name of Place (by birth)". Charles 20:38, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note, however, that this is German usage; Russian Grand Dukes were not sovereign (at least after 1610).Septentrionalis 02:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[de jure]] none of the German monarchies within the Holy Roman Empire were sovereign. The only time they truly enjoyed independence was between the fall of the Holy Roman Empire and the founding of the Second Reich. Or would anyone argue that tiny Wied was just as "sovereign" as Prussia? So where do we draw the line between sovereign monarchies within the Holy Roman Empire? None of those monarchies were truly sovereign in the classical sense like let's say France or Britain. And after the founding of the Second Reich less even so. Gryffindor 17:16, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Each case has to be examined individually. I have posted a discussion for Grand Ducal Hesse at Talk:Hesse-Darmstadt. Charles 17:24, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A modest proposal

The "maiden name rule" is a generalization (and a simplification) of actual usage, which does not actually follow it.

Until very recently, royals were disambiguated by any means convenient; often a place name. This could be

• Place of birth (John of Gaunt, Edward of Caernarvon).
• Associated title (Joan of Kent, Edward of March, Richard of Gloucester)
• Foreign realm associated with the royal. The foreign realm might be
  • The origin of a foreign princess marrying in England: Mary of Teck, Anne of Cleves.
  • The origin of a foreign prince marrying or coming to England: William of Orange, George of Denmark, Rupert of the Rhine.
  • The foreign realm assumed by an English princess marrying abroad: Elizabeth of Bohemia.
  • I don't think any English princes acquired crowns matrimonial, but it would have extended to them too; consider Maximillian of Mexico as a distant parallel.

This inevitably Anglocentric (or, xince the French used it too - and probably first - Gallocentric) system in part (but only in part) overlaps the maiden-name rule, which is an artificial Wikipedia construct. The cases where it most weverely fails are precisely those where this discussion keeps floundering; Alexandra of Russia and Elizabeth, late Queen-consort of England.

I have a modest proposal: let's follow actual usage. Septentrionalis 02:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actual usage varies, to be honest. Many people speak of Alix, some of Empress Alexandra, others of Aleksandra Feodorovna/Fyodorovna. Rupert of the Rhine is a mess as is... To get to the point, a set system of classification where there is generally no wiggle room is what works best. Consorts to states with monarchs (be them dukes, emperors, etc) should be treated the same. Sovereigns ought to be treated the same and royals who were neither consorts or sovereigns ought to be treated alike. Other common usages should redirect to the appropiate article (eg Kaiserin Elizabeth to Elizabeth of Bavaria) as they do now. Charles 02:44, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actual usage varies enormously - if it didn't, we wouldn't have a problem. The maiden name rule isn't a wikipedia concept at all, it is the "normal" usage in academic/reference books. That's why we adopted it as a general rule or convention. Deb 11:28, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's the normal usage in many cases. Sometimes Wikipedia tries to generalize this beyond its elastic limit; don't think I'm saying more than that. Septentrionalis 06:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would welcome some improvement in the naming conventions for past royal consorts. The present system treats a princess of X-land in exactly the same way as a queen regnant of X-land; this is downright peculiar. I understand Charles' desire for "no wiggle room", but after decades of royalty-study I now understand that that is just not possible (there are so many variations and exceptions). Noel S McFerran 13:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joan of England

Another query on Queen Consorts. There are four Joan of Englands, all mentioned on that page. Two have 'alternate' names, and have their own articles under those. The other two do not, and the page looks a mess as a result. According to the naming conventions discussed above, these women should both be at Joan of England, but need to be disambiguated. I have proposed on the talk page turning Joan of England into a redirect dab page, with links to:

• Joan of England (Queen Consort of Sicily)
• Joan of England (Queen Consort of Scotland)
• Joan, Lady of Wales
• Joan of the Tower

Any thoughts on the article names for the first two? Alternative ways to dab these would be welcome. ::Supergolden:: 11:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You mean a disambiguation page; a redirect must point only one place. Consort should not, by WP style, be capitalized, and is probably unnecessary, Septentrionalis 17:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I did of course mean a disambig page. I think consort is probably necessary, Joan of England (Queen of Scotland) does sound a wee bit odd. ::Supergolden:: 17:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any more than Margaret of Anjou (queen of England), or even William of Orange (king of England)? Not that these exist; Margaret doesn't need dabbing AFAIK, and we barely escaped disambiguating William of Orange (from William the Silent). Septentrionalis 22:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The names for members of this house is an absolute disaster. The use of Bourbon-"Territory" is at best, extremely informal and has only ever been used by few people to describe themselves. It also appears to be applied to every Bourbon princeling one can think of on Wikipedia, certainly even for those who never used it. Bourbon monarchs of states such as Parma, the Two Sicilies, etc are at "of Parma", "of the Two Sicilies", etc. The agnates of such monarchs should share the same territorial designation, be put into categories of Parma, the Two Sicilies, etc, which should be sub-categories of Bourbon. It reflects fact and the few people who seem to be known by such hyphenations would be covered by redirects. For instance, Zita of Bourbon-Parma would be at Zita of Parma, which is shorter, correct and actually looks better. Charles 17:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(reposted here from above) I can only point out to you the homepage of the Royal House of Bourbon-Parma which clearly states their name as such http://www.borbonparma.org/ and also concerning the "Bourbon-Two Sicilies" here is the homepage of the Royal House of Bourbon Two Sicilies http://www.realcasadiborbone.it Gryffindor 18:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That appears to have only come to use in exile. Retroactively, one cannot apply such names to all Bourbons who aren't of Spain or of France. Charles 19:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Charles' suggestion would be contrary to established English-language usage as testified by hundreds of books. It is the common practice for the head of the house to be "name, Duke of Parma" or "name, King of the Two Sicilies" - but for the cadets of the same house to be "Prince name of Bourbon-Parma" or "Prince name of Bourbon-Two Sicilies" (or Bourbon-Sicily). It is totally inappropriate for Wikipedia to change the scholarly practice. Noel S McFerran 13:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe the practice is scholarly, it is merely recycling of sloppiness. Charles 15:56, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The evidence shows that "Prince X of Bourbon-Parma" and "Princess Y of Bourbon-Sicily", or variations thereof (always including "Bourbon" and usually "name-of-realm") is how members of these branches of the Bourbon dynasty are overwhelmingly referred to (rather than as "Prince X of Parma" or "Princess Y of the Two Sicilies") in even the most precise venues, and in common reference, the latter being what is most relevant to WP usage.

1. As indicated above, this is how they refer to themselves and inform others of their title, as evidenced by their respective websites.
2. It is how they refer to themselves legally, as evidenced in the name/title under which one of them filed a lawsuit appeal (against Mrs. Carmen Rossi, as mother/legal guardian of the French Legitimist claimant, over use of the title Duc d'Anjou) jointly with the Orléans claimant as shown: "Cour d'appel de Paris (1re Ch. sect. A) 22 novembre 1989 Présidence de Mme Ezratty Premier Président Prince Henri d'Orléans, comte de Clermont et Prince Sixte Henri de Bourbon Parme c. Carmen Rossi". (Emphasis mine).
3. Scholarly works? In the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica's article on the principality of Bulgaria, it states: "In the spring of 1893 Prince Ferdinand married Princess Marie-Louise of Bourbon-Parma, whose family insisted on the condition that the issue of the marriage should be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith." (Emphasis mine).
4. Authoritative sources? Until it ceased publication in 1944, the Almanach de Gotha was regarded as the premier source and final authority on proper use of dynastic titles, relied upon by courts and diplomats. Since it began publication in 1951 the Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels is now regarded as the most authoritative genealogical work on royalty. Both publications did and do submit entries to the Head of House of each dynasty for prior review.

• The 1878 Almanach de Gotha included its entry on the Dukes of Parma, who had been in exile since 1860, under "Bourbon". But it did not define the official titles of Parmesan dynasts, nor did it report titular suffixes for females. But I found one relevant example: in the Portugal entry the marriage was recorded of the Infanta Adelgonde in 1872 to a younger son of Duke Charles III of Parma, who is listed as Prince Henri de Bourbon, Comte de Bardi (Emphasis mine).
• But the 1912 Almanach entry does define the official title of Parmesan dynasts: "Les cadets portent les titre et nom de prince ou princesse de Bourbon de Parme, Alt. Roy." (Emphasis mine).
• The 1991 Handbuch does likewise on p.13: "Die Nachgeborenen führen den Titel und Namen Prinz bzw. Prinzessin v. Bourbon v. Parma und das Prädikat Kgl. Hoheit." (Emphasis theirs).

Nonetheless, I agree with Charles that it would be reasonable to use Prince/ss of Parma for members of the family prior to 1860. The House of Bourbon reigned in Parma (with interregnums) 1748-1860. So that family has now been in exile from their realm longer than they held its throne, therefore it is understandable why they and everyone else refer to them as we do. I would be interested in evidence that outweighs the cites given.Lethiere 07:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In going over the naming convention page and its archives, I haven't come across a discussion of a problem found in many French biographic articles: in Wikipedia article titles, French noble titles of lesser nobles (including artists, writers, statesmen and so forth) are currently listed in two different ways:

1. in English translation (Duke of, Count of...) for historical figures and royalty most well-known by their English forms.
2. in French for other cases, maintaining the French title spelling (seigneur, chevalier, marquis, duc, comte) and the de.

Furthermore, in the second case, capitalization is currently chaotic:

• in French with lower case spelling: comtesee de, marquis de... (e.g. Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet, Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac, Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz; this is the correct form in French and is the form used in article titles on the French wiki)
• in French with capital spelling: Comtesse de, Marquis de... (e.g. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney; this is a Franco-English hybrid form, but fits with the capitalization rules of the wiki).

It would be helpful if we could come to some sort of consensus which would fit with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles). (Feel free to post discussion on talk page of Wikipedia:France-related topics notice board). -- NYArtsnWords 18:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have only ever seen instances of duc/comte/prince de Place or Duke/Count/Prince of Place. In my opinion, it should be standard to have all articles with french titles using de to have the title in lowercase. Charles 18:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with Charles on this one. Although I know this can be controversial amongst users. If you are going to go with french, it should be lowercase in order to be correct. Uppercase is used sometimes as well though in English. Where is the uppercase rule on Wikipedia, I must have missed it? If it says though we should use uppercase, well then it would indeed be a hybrid form of English-French. hm.... Gryffindor 18:31, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Gryffindor. (Clearly time I went home :->). Septentrionalis 06:53, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that when a title is given in French, it should be lowercased to be consistent with the fact that French is in use. However I disagree that titles should be given in a language other than English if a customary English translation exists. Thus Jean III de Grailly, captal de Buch and the vidame de Picquigny should be listed that way because captal and vidame have no customary or consistent English translations (and the comte de Paris should be listed as such {contrary to the WP article}, because by convention dating to the 19th century the "title of pretence" of claimants to the kingdom of France is not usually translated when referred to in English). But the Duke de Broglie should be listed that way because "Duke" is the customary English translation for French "duc".

I also suggest that, when a (non-royal) titleholder's associated language is one of the Latin, Scandinavian or Benelux languages most recognizable to English speakers, the particule should be in that language, otherwise in English (if in doubt, I'd use the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica as a guide), e.g. Duke de Lerma; Count van Hoorn; (Queen Paola of the Belgians' father) Don Fulco Prince Ruffo di Calabria, 6th Duke di Guardia Lombarda; Count Folke Bernadotte af Wisborg; Baron von Munchhausen, etc. Exceptions should be made for noble titleholders so well known in English that their native particule is usually translated, e.g. Princess Daisy of Pless.Lethiere 07:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I think English should be used when at all possible and when it makes sense to do so. A title placed after the initial name can almost always have elements equivalent to "of", "in", etc translated. Charles 18:59, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since Gryffindor has asked us to try again to move toward a conclusion on the use of, at least, French noble titles in article names, I'll take another stab at that task.

We seem to have agreed on the following:

1. Since titles have so often been borne by more than one person, articles must include a first name, according to WP naming convention.
2. When a noble title is written in French, it should be lower-cased, as it would usually be if the article were in a French publication.
3. If a title is given in English, it should be capitalized.
4. When a noble lacks a title but has a particle in the surname, that particle should not be translated into English.
5. A French title that does not have a standard English translation should be given in French.

In other areas where no consensus has been reached, I recommend the following for the reasons indicated:

1. A courtesy title should only be used in compliance with the French norms prevalent in the era of the article's subject (e.g. Vicomte de Turenne for "Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne" is fine. But it should be Henri de Laborde de Monpezat for Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark, without the comital style because when that prefix was adopted by the Laborde family, only members of titled noble families customarily assumed a titre de courtoisie, yet the Labordes were not even genuinely noble, let alone titled). If the subject is substantially better known by a non-standard style that should be explained in the article.
2. A French title should be translated into English, but French particles should not (except for royalty). The reasons for this are:
   1. English-users may not be presumed to know French titles, so they should be translated in order for the reader to understand more about the person's status than would be the case if the title is left untranslated. Since titles are wikified in English, general information about the title, as well as its use in French-using nations, is readily available. Granted, titles carried different meanings in different nations, but the fact that there are words which translate all but the most obscure titles (and Pfalzgräf has two translations: "Palsgrave" and "Count Palatine"!) indicates that we need neither re-invent nor dis-invent that wheel.
   2. Particles should not be translated because the "of" in a title suggests geographical affiliation to English-users, i.e. it implies that what follows the "of" is the name of a place, whereas this is much less the case in French titles. Place affiliation is intentional in British titles: even when the titleholder never had a historical association with the locale in the title, the official Letters Patent legally create that association when they create the title. Thus in Britain, the title as used almost invariably reflects the actual title conferred by the sovereign. But French particles in titles often precede a word that is nothing more than the surname (prior to the 19th century it was common for social-climbers to insert "de" into their surnames). But it may never have been a geographical site or may never have been legally associated with the title. French custom is far more lenient than British when it comes to usage of noble titles, and it is considered perfectly acceptable socially (though meaningless legally) for a junior male (never females) of a titled family to assume a title as a prefix to his surname, or to include the name of a locale which is no longer owned by or associated with his family.
   3. Leaving the particle untranslated helps the reader identify the nationality with which the title is identified (e.g. "Duke de Magenta" is a French dukedom, not an Italian one)
   4. Leaving the particle untranslated for nobility helps the reader of history distinguish between nobles and rulers (e.g. the Duke de Guise was a non-reigning French peer who was also a cadet of the dynasty of the reigning, non-French Duke of Lorraine. The Prince of Orange was a reigning monarch, whereas the Prince de Marcillac was a French courtier who did not rule or own anything called "Marcillac". The Prince de Condé was for long the first Prince of the Blood Royal of France, but the "de" reminds us that this title was not substantive, whereas the petty Prince of Monaco, although deemed far below Condé in dignity at Versailles, nonetheless ruled his own realm. And the Duke de Wagram, Prince of Neuchâtel was a French, not an Austrian, duke, and the ruler of a principality -- both of which distinctions can be gleaned by deploying the particle as I propose).
   5. The particle should not be translated because that would change both historical and prevailing styling for no advantage. Again, "The Prince of Condé" is almost never used and would strike many WP readers familiar with history as wrong-headed if not wrong, eliciting never-ending edits and reverts.
   6. If style is a legitimate consideration, giving every French titleholder an "of" sounds a bit pretentious and retrograde -- stuffy. Worse, it subtly intimates that the importance of noble titles (and, implicitly, of nobility) is current rather than historical. That is because "of" is usually reserved in English for peers who, until recently were hereditary members of the British Parliaments, and for members of reigning and once-reigning families. Yet the majority of the 10,000 families in France that use "de" in their surnames aren't even noble, let alone royal. Surnames are not translated in WP, yet for most French titles, the particle has become part of the surname.
   7. For the reasons just enumerated, translating particles is also likely to be perceived as subtly pro-monarchist, pro-aristocracy, and therefore too POV. It becomes an inviting target. There is an escalating struggle that this Naming Conventions page has become a WP battleground for. It is between the traditionalists, who often write of royalty and nobility as if the French Revolution never happened, and the republi-egalitarians who would like to see titles stripped from current WP usage altogether, or at the least minimized. And the latter much outnumber the former. I don't want this to happen, if only so that some of the flavor of a bygone era can still be scented when immersing oneself in history on WP. But I realize that to preserve WP references to "Her Royal Highness Princess Diane of Orléans" it is prudent not to insist upon references to the "Marchioness of Sévigné" or the "Marquess of the Fayette"!Lethiere 08:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I suspect I would agree with Lethiere in practice. But I must disagree with his rules. In fact, I disagree with any rule except English usage, which is usually clear, and can be found by looking up the subject in a few English references. (If he's not there, he's not notable.) Marquis de Lafayette is unquestioned American (and I think British) usage; so is Duke of Anjou. We should use both. Septentrionalis 23:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe that Lethiere worries too much about the use of a French title with non-French placename, like Duke of Wagram. This should not be a problem; there are lots of British titles including non-British placenames, like Baron Clive of Plassey, for the same reason: the title is for a battle won abroad. (We can disambiguate this when and if we have to; I doubt there is an Austrian Herzog zu Wagram.) Septentrionalis 23:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think this name may actually be usual usage in English. I would propose making the article title Władysław II Jagiełło of Lithuania and Poland, both for historical order and to avoid any appearance of slighting Lithuania. I don't think there's any risk of confusion with Władysław II the Exile; if necessary there is always the option of using the English form (and yes, it is the English form, as well as the Latin) Ladislaus. Septentrionalis 17:49, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Poland was a kingdom, Lithuania merely a grand duchy, so Poland should come first. Is it slighting Spain to have Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor? But the Polish monarch articles are currently on their own bizarre plane of article naming, which needs to be cleared up. john k 18:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This should be addressed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Polish rulers), I believe. Olessi 18:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict, @Pmanderson/Septentrionalis:)? I still prefer Wladyslaw II/V of Poland, Jogaila of Lithuania, as it is on this page above for more than a month. Your argumentation does not appear convincing to me. This monarch was never "Władysław" in Lithuania; the ordinal "II" only applies to Poland, and then still with ambiguity: "V" is equally used; he was never "Jagiełło of Lithuania" ("Jagiełło" is Polish, in Lithuania his name was "Jogaila", this is never transcribed as Jagiełło in English).

Your proposal sounds something like William I the Conqueror of Normandy and England to me: in Normandy he was William "II" (and that's then still without mixing in a frog-leaped translation like you did in the Jogaila/Jagiełło proposal).

Further, I'd suggest not to create on this talk page a third place for discussing the page name for this monarch, there is already:

• Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło (several sections on that page)
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Polish_rulers)#Władysław II, IV, V, and kings' nicknames

New impetus to the discussions in these places welcome!

Note also that it is possible to edit the table of proposals pictured above, just click the edit link... this changes the proposal on several pages simultaneously: the table is presently included in:

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Polish rulers)
• Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Polish rulers)
• Talk:List of Polish monarchs

feel free to contribute (don't forget to update the "rationale" explanation if you change/add proposals to the table).

Anyway, Olessi suggested the shifting of the discussion to another page in fewer words: I support! --Francis Schonken 19:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copied to NC(Polish rulers). If someone wants to delete it here, fine. Septentrionalis 22:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is huge inconsistency in the names used for British life peers - some are named using their title and some not. The paragraph on the subject in this article does not clarify matters:

Life peers...use the dignity in the title, unless the individual is exclusively referred to by personal name. For example: Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone (not "Quintin McGarel Hogg"), but Margaret Thatcher (not "Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher.")

That allows a vast amount of leeway as to naming, since pretty much no life peer is referred to exclusively by their personal name (even Laurence Olivier, somebody definitely known professionally by his personal name, was frequently referred to as "Lord Olivier", for example). It's interesting that Margaret Thatcher is used as an example. She's not referred to exclusively by her personal name at all - in fact, she is now pretty much exclusively referred to, by the British media at least, as "Baroness Thatcher" or "Lady Thatcher". I think we need a little more clarification on this policy. -- Necrothesp 17:23, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's true there is inconsistency, but that's in the nature of the thing. I believe we normally come to a consensus if there is doubt (sometimes after quite a bit of debate). I don't think a hard-and-fast rule is possible in these cases. Deb 18:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point is really whether or not the many life peers who are listed only by their personal name should be moved to their name and title. This is particularly an issue when someone who already has an article about them is created a peer. -- Necrothesp 15:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have a very very very long argument with Jerzy for a very very very long time.

At the begining, it was only about the oportunity to rename artcles from Pope Stephen III to Pope Stephen X. You can find the whole dispute on this page Talk:Pope_Stephen. Finally, we agree on it: those articles must be renamed. But we definitly don't agree about what the new titles must be.

I wanted to have the opinion of other users. I don't think it has to be dicided only by him and me. In short, here are our opinions:

Jerzy's opinion:

Pope Stephen III must be renamed Pope Stephen (II or III), ... , Pope Stephen X must be renamed Pope Stephen (IX or X). The "former" Pope Stephen II must be renamed Pope Stephen (unconsecrated). New disambiguation pages must be created for each Pope Stephen n entry.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Švitrigaila (talk • contribs) 21:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• That description suggests a burden of Dab pages being borne as a cost imposed by the desire for titles that are non-committal about the numbering.

The proposal will be better understood if viewed as a design for a disambiguation structure that (except for the familiar burden of Dab'd article titles) stays hidden from most users (since the easily built Dab pages will be seen only by editors and those who type in an article title starting "Pope Stephen..." -- but not those who follow links from other articles). This structure may be constrasted with Švitrigaila's approach, and the need that it imposes, for

1. a ToP Dab on each article but one, and
2. the unusual & IMO problematic structure of all but one of the ToP Dabs lk'g to a page that in turn begins with another ToP Dab that almost always is irrelevant, but may give the impression of needing to be read and perhaps lk'd thru, and may lead to reflexive or confused lk'g into an irrelevant article, or conceivably in turn into more than one.

It is, mutatis mutandum, the article titles that are the consequent burden, and the separation of Dab'n into separate files that is the benefit sought.

--Jerzy•t 05:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Švitrigaila's opinion:

Pope Stephen III must be renamed Pope Stephen II, ... , Pope Stephen X must be renamed Pope Stephen IX. Pope Stephen X must be kept as a simple redirect to Pope Stephen IX. The "former" Pope Stephen II must be renamed Pope elect Stephen. No disambiguation page has to be created. A simple disambiguation phrase is added at the top of each article (this line can already be seen in those articles: I wrote them myself and surprisingly Jerzy transformed them into a Template, that's a very good idea!)

Note I've renamed the old Pope Stephen II into Stephen (ephemeral pope). I know this title is awkward and the move was not wise.

Now, I don't want further historical arguments about the opportunity of changing the existing titles. The discussion is no more about historical facts. In theory all is explained in Stephen (ephemeral pope). I would like users to decide which system is better for numbering those popes.

Švitrigaila 21:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinions:

"Pope Stephen (II or III)" or "Pope Stephen II"?

• "Pope Stephen II" : My argument is there must be a choice in a title, and a title can't reflect all the possible variants for one name. Švitrigaila 21:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Historians use the designation "Stephen II/III". Let's not try to reinvent the wheel. The ambiguously numbered Stephens need both of their ambiguous numbers in their article titles. - Nunh-huh 22:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some historians do. Some don't. The designation "Stephen II/III" is not at all universal. And can you find another example of a Wikipedia page with a dab in its title? Švitrigaila 22:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • All historians are familiar with this use, or they are inept historians. I'm quite certain there are similar examples in Wikipedia, but in any case they are irrelevant. We are here to use standard nomenclature, not invent our own. - Nunh-huh 22:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you consider "Stephen II/III" as possible variants of the name, it has nothing to do in the title, or else you can rename James I of England into James I of England/VI of Scotland. Variants must be only in the article's text and the title must choose only one. If you consider "Stephen II/III" as name by itself, so you must compare its frequency with other names used. I did it with all the sources I have at home and the results are here: "Stephen II" is far more frequent than "Stephen II/III". And don't forget Pope Stephen X signed all his documents "Stephen IX", not "Stephen IX/X". Švitrigaila 22:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, we do not use the most common ambiguous designation in preference to a common but unambiguous one. - Nunh-huh 22:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • So, we can rename the Volgograd page into Stalingrad, or better into Stalingrad/Volgograd. Švitrigaila 23:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Not at all the same thing, and I suspect you know that. No one refers to "Stalingrad/Volgograd", while "Stephen II/III" (etc.) is the standard designation for people who need to know which Pope Stephen they are talking about. - Nunh-huh 01:15, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • [written before Nunh-huh's 01:15 response immediately above] Švitrigaila is fond of arguments by analogy, and has shown no sign of appreciating the difference between a false analogy and relevant one. (Oddly, this has gotten worse rather than better: one of their previous analogies, citing Leningrad & St. Petersburg, was slightly more relevant, since at least there are multiple St. Petersburgs.) Offering this analogy of a city that has had two names overlooks the crucially relevant aspects that are missing in the analogue. The cities offer a classic example of a navigational problem that can be solved by a single redirect. We are dealing here with a especially perverse combination of the kind of problem we normally solve with a redirect and the kind of problem we normally solve with a Dab: each pope has two names, like the cities, but unlike the cities (where each name has one city), each name also has two popes. I've called it "especially perverse", because, as i have pointed out at Talk:Pope Stephen/Naming (Potential Solutions)#Jerzy's Detailed Solution, the top-of-page Dabs that Švitrigaila admits their solution requires are an ugly, verbose blot at the top of the page, and a source of further confusion, since following any of the ToP Dabs (except one) leads the reader to another nearly identical (but confusingly different) Dab in the next "lower" article. (The ToP Dabs may in fact need to be that verbose and ugly, which would be a further argument, beyond the confusion, for an approach close to mine.)
                --Jerzy•t 03:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                
          • It is essentially on Nunh-huh's "[less] common but unambiguous [designation]" reasoning that i advocated Pope Stephen (II or III); IMO it is immediately recognizable by those used to Pope Stephen II/III (first advocated by an IP), but

            more quickly interpreted by non-experts, and

            especially easier to interpret as a Dab'd title for those familiar with en:-WP Dab'd-title style.

          I'd be quite happy with either.
          --Jerzy•t 03:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          

• The article on the Pope elect makes the case that there is a present consensus on numbering II through IX. If there is, we should use it. If there isn't, please state your authority for present use of something else. Septentrionalis 22:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • To be perfectly honnest, I must say I'm the author of this article. It doesn't change anything to the discussion of course. Švitrigaila 22:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • A present consensus beyond WP is neither demonstrated, nor adequate (even if it had been) to show the simple names are desirable:

    _ _ Švitrigaila believes that a Vatican list of 1961 put a stop to all variability. But Googling (English)

    931 -Wikipedia "Pope Stephen VIII" -"Pope Stephen VII"

    gives "103 of about 176" hits, and

    931 -Wikipedia "Pope Stephen VII" -"Pope Stephen VIII"

    gives "40 of about 58". So Pope Stephen VII/VIII (who died in 931) is probably called Stephen VIII about 72% of the time on the Web, and VII 28% (not the, say, 90% that Švitrigaila "consensus" suggests) of the time. That may not be typical; someone may want to extend that method to other popes than the 931 one. But it's hardly as simple as Septentrionalis construes the article as painting it. This 'graph by Jerzy altered by him at 05:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC).

    _ _ But current usage is not IMO crucial. What is crucial is that the old mixed usage will never go away. In fact, i remember consulting EB1911, long before the Web and thus probably before it was on line, after a round of I, Claudius episoces: sources from that era often offer better coverage of out-of-fashion topics like Romans and medieval popes. That means we can't refuse to support decently the users diligent enough to consult old sources on even older topics.
    --Jerzy•t 03:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    

    • There is a much simpler solution to oldfashioned usage: a header, warning the reader: This name has also been used for Pope Stephen II, and a paragraph (which should exist anyway) explaining the situation. Septentrionalis 04:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Though that's not a solution: an unqualified "Stephen III" means absolutely nothing, while "Stephen II/III" is perfectly precise.
- Nunh-huh 05:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• This "oldfashioned usage" is just a term of abuse. The real situation is that by and large we don't need the Roman numerals to write our articles, and that the usually valuable numbering mechanism has been rendered worthless by centuries of political maneuvering disguised as theological hair splitting. We need to do something about it, not to "get the names right", but to properly serve the unfortunates who have no better way to get to the article than thru shabby mechanism of the Roman numerals.
  --Jerzy•t 05:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  

And why not renaming Miguel Induráin into Miguel Induráin/Indurain? The answer is you never express variants in the title of an article. Never. You can't find even one counterexample on Wikipedia. And Nunh-huh says "Stephen II/III" is the standard designation for this pope: it's absolutely false. You may find in an encyclopedia a sentence such as "He added to that power after Pope Stephen II traveled all the way to Paris to anoint Pippin in a lavish ceremony at Saint Denis Basilica", or "He added to that power after Pope Stephen III traveled all the way ...", but you'll never find something like "He added to that power after Pope Stephen II/III traveled all the way ..." (this sentence is from the article Pippin the Younger). "Stephen II/III" is not his name. It's only two possible different names for the same person. As Induráin and Indurain are two possible different names for the same man. If you rename the article into Pope Stephen II/III, it would be against the naming conventions. And Jerzy's proposition to rename articles into Pope Stephen (II or III) and to use pipes such as [[Pope Stephen (II or III)|Pope Stephen II]] seems to go expressly against Wikipedia's Manual of style.

He seems to think that if someone goes on Pope Stephen IX and reads Pope Stephen VIII is sometime called Stephen IX, he'll click on Pope Stephen VIII only to read Pope Stephen VII is sometime called Pope Stephen VIII, and the he'll click on Pope Stephen VII and so on... Does he really think a normal reader will conclude Pope Stephen II is sometime called Pope Stephen X? If I'm looking for an article about a man I don't know anything about, let's say "Pope Stephen VII" for example, and if I read his article and I found the phrase "Note: In sources prior to the 1960's, this pope is sometimes called Stephen VIII and Stephen VI is sometimes called Stephen VII. See Stephen (ephemeral pope) for detailed explanations.", that would be enough for me. I won't check all the Pope Stephen pages one by one. I'm stupid, OK, but I am not that stupid.

You all here seem to consider both numbers for each pope Stephen are equally correct. They are not. There is a good number and a wrong one. As I've already said ten times here, Pope Stephen IX was explicitely named "the ninth" during his reign, and it was by mistake he was renamed after. And yes, Jerzy, we have to "get the names right". It is the role of an encyclopedia. If I look for Miguel Indurain or Miguel Induráin in an encyclopedia, I hope the encyclopedia will give me the correct spelling of his name. It's normal to have a redirect from the misspelled entry to the good one, but it's in order to help the user and to correct him, not in order to mean both spelling are correct (and in fact, the English Wikipedia mistakes once again : the correctly spelling of his name is without the accent even in Spanish, but I suppose if there was somewhere on Earth another famous Miguel Indurain without the accent, some would find better to keep the racing cyclist's name with the accent according to Nunh-huh's principle "we do not use the most common ambiguous designation in preference to a common but unambiguous one", that is to say "a wrong information is better than a right one if it is better understood".)

Švitrigaila 23:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Pope Stephen (unconsacrated) (unconsecrated)" or "Pope-elect Stephen"?

• "Pope elect Stephen" : He was elected bishop of Rome, what is now called "the pope", but died three days after, before he was ordained a bishop. He was not considered the bishop of Rome at his time for this reason, and he's not considered a pope today. Then he was exactly a "pope elect", that is a man "elected pope". Švitrigaila 21:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • _ _ I don't grasp the theological reasoning involved, but it's clear Švitrigaila wants us to take a PoV position on whether he was a "real" pope or not: they've even argued elsewhere on WP that to use the phrase "Pope Stephen" is to reject Vatican II, constitutes (IIRC) "Catholic traditionalism", and puts the speaker under suspicion of being a Catholic traditionalist fanatic.

  _ _ NPoV means, for the title, respecting common-sense usage over counting the angels dancing on the pinhead. Many people have accepted him as a Pope, and even those who don't still know exactly who the "unconsecrated Pope Stephen", or, in a Dab-suggesting format, Pope Stephen (unconsecrated) refers to.

  _ _ (Minor reasons for preferring "unconsecrated" over "Pope-elect": Each raises questions that have to be put off for the article to answer, but "unconsecrated" raises fewer (viz., "why not?") than "Pope-elect" ("How is that different, and why that difference?"); Pope-elect is not a familiar term, and is likely to cause the reader to pause to think about the (for Americans) familiar term, President-elect, the existence of a lame-duck President, the transition team, change of party in power, etc. "Stephen" then has to be grafted onto the construction Pope-elect. (In contrast Pope <given-name> is a construction so familiar that literary titles like Pope Joan roll off the tongue and most popes' names feel more like a single word than words concatenated, so that "Pope Stephen (unconsecrated)" feels like two rather than three words, and for many en:-WP users the parentheses graft on with very little ambiguity or thought about their meaning.))

  _ _ This is BTW, the least substantial aspect of the Pope-Stephen problem, and here's the most valuable thing i can say about it:

  I'd probably be happier if we used Pope-elect Stephen and no further comments appeared in this section, than if there is significantly more discussion on this aspect.

  --Jerzy•t 04:39, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  

• I'm in favour of Švitrigaila's proposal. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 04:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Švitrigaila 15:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• So I rename now Stephen (ephemeral pope) into Pope-elect Stephen. I choose the hyphened spelling in accordance with thoses sites : [5] and [6] but I'll make a redirect from Pope elect Stephen. Švitrigaila 15:41, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You certainly shouldn't rename anything until there's a consensus achieved that that is the correct thing to do. - Nunh-huh 20:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why? I'm a registered user and I can rename an article if i want to. You have the same right. If you're not happy with that move, you can oppose it on Wikipedia:Requested_moves and if you'll explain why the title Stephen (ephemeral pope) was better. To get a consensus on whatever subject, we need a vote. I've tried to create good conditions for a vote to take place... in vain. All my attempts at launching a vote have had no effect. The voting places are soon transformed into endless talk pages. I've launched this debate on 19 February 2006 and there has been only four persons to express thieir view on the matter. But there are pages and pages of debates. I'd like to see this problem solved before I go into retirement. Švitrigaila 17:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why? Because that's not the correct way to do things, and may result in an edit war, which is not a good thing. If you can't get concensus for your proposed change - and so far you haven't - perhaps you should consider the possibility that it's an ill-advised proposal. - Nunh-huh 05:02, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Talk: Pope Stephen X continues this discussion. If Nunh-huh can convince some of these voices to change, fine; if not, he should read Wikipedia:consensus Septentrionalis

No, that page doesn't "continue" this discussion, it discusses a single page. That discussion belongs here,. I know what consensus is on Wikipedia, thank you, despite your snide implication. - Nunh-huh 22:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unsnidely: WP:Consensus also suggests what Nunh-huh's remedies are. Talk:Pope Stephen X is a discussion on the entire issue, as referred to WP:RM. It has to be somewhere. Septentrionalis 22:47, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, it isn't. Talk: Pope Stephen X is basically a vote, with precious little discussion, and is about renaming a single page, not a series of pages. - Nunh-huh 23:18, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is about renaming the whole series of them, and the moves are currently being carried out. —Nightstallion (?) 13:02, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copied here from Wikipedia talk:Polish Wikipedians' notice board 16:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Please comment at Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło to stop this monstrosity from happening.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 14:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There have been a few moves of pages of the princes/princesses who were simutaneously the children of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha. Now, the pages are at "of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha", moved by a user who was moving more pages from "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" to "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha". Since the use of the "and" is correct and was in the official name of the duchy (duchies), it should be used. However, does SC&G need to be used with Edinburgh? Charles 16:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Charles is referring to the children of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He had six children, five of whom have Wiki-articles. "Prince Alfred of Edinburgh" has been renamed Prince Alfred of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (by Yakksta_x on March 27). "Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" has been renamed Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (by Morhange on April 29). "Princess Alexandra of Edinburgh" has been renamed Princess Alexandra of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (by Yakksta_x on March 27). "Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh" has been renamed Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (by Yakksta_x on March 27). Only Marie of Edinburgh has not been changed (she became queen of Romania). The four who have been changed are virtually never known as "of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha"; this is just not the standard way of referring to these people in English-language works. The convention states "Where a monarch has reigned over a number of states, use the most commonly associated ones." Surely this must apply to cadet members of a house as well. Or are we to rename the articles for all archdukes of Austria, to show that they were also princes of Hungary and Bohemia, etc.? I agree with Charles that these pages should use the "most common form of the name used in English" (whatever that is - and it might be difficult to decide sometimes; and it might not be consistent for all five of them). Noel S McFerran 22:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Simply using of Edinburgh seems rather ignorant to the status of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a sovereign state of which Alfred was the duke. Alfred's article simply is titled Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha rather than a combination involving Edinburgh. Would it suffice, for the sake of using one designation and to match their father, to have the prince and the princesses at of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha? Granted, both were used at times, but if one is to be used over the other, I think the status as children of a reigning Saxon duke is more important that a courtesy designation from their father's UK peerage, which was a dukedom with no territory to reign over. All that being said, if Edinburgh was only used, I would find it to be much more acceptable than a long string of designations not even of equal standing (on the basis of territory/state). Charles 22:58, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of Marie (whose page name hasn't been changed), she is almost always known in English works as "Marie of Edinburgh". In the case of Victoria Melita she is usually known as "of Saxe-Coburg ((and) Gotha)". I'm not nearly as sure regarding Alexandra and Beatrice. I'm afraid that this is another case of common English usage not being consistent. Noel S McFerran 03:23, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Saxe-Coburg and Gotha for the junior members of the house is simply not English usage and should not be imposed upon this version of Wikipedia. (Charles appears, elsewhere, to be under the impression that it is somehow informal, but has presented no instances of the alleged formal use.) I have found no examples of this in the standard sources, including the Complete Peerage.
• The head of the Bulgarian branch of the house is now calling himself Simeon Sakskoburggotski; the formulation at the head of his own article (Simeon II of Bulgaria) distinguishes between the English and the German forms, which may be a way out of this less-than-useful pedantry. Septentrionalis 04:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Does Simeon II himself ever use the English "form" of the name? That's like a John King going to Germany and being called Hans Koenig for the time. The German form is Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha. It's pretty straight-forward what the translation is. The article for the duchy was at the name and for the most part, the princes and princesses were at this name. Also, all the dukes are at this name. There is a clear distinction to be made between a form with the and and one with a hyphen. The form with the and (the correct form) indicates the existence of two entities (Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha, getting rid of the other Saxony gives Saxe-(Coburg and Gotha)). Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is chiefly and English invention and sloppy short hand for omitting an and. The Simeon II article states that S-C-G is an English form of his name. Yes, it is an English form, but it is an inaccurate form. Besides, the use of and in a name without a title or preposition is extremely pecular in English. If there were people called Victoria Melita Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, it would look extremely odd. Charles 13:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • He appears to use the Bulgarian form in all languages; he certainly uses it in Bulgarian, which therefore differs from the formal German usage.
  • Charles appears to assume that, because the translation into English could be straightforward, the straightforward equivalent must be right, and anything else must be English sloppiness. The two musts here are unjustified: English idiom simply differs from German, and Wikipedia policy is to follow it. Septentrionalis 21:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The distinction in German between - and and with regard to this Saxon duchy is an important one, such that this particular translation IS straight forward. I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish, if not to try to get under the skin of others. The version that differs from the direct translation from German is an informal treatment. Charles 01:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not trying to be irritating; I am trying to follow English usage, which is policy. Charles is attempting to import a distinction, which, as far as I can tell, no English source (however formal) makes, and which is unidiomatic. It may be that English could benefit from a change; but this is not the place to campaign for one. Septentrionalis 04:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The naming convention cannot push any such title to anyone which (s)he has not actually held. For example, prince/princess in titles of medieval cadet members of monarchical families are untenable. This leads to a funny situation, where a large bunch of people (mostly women) have articles which resemble closely those of ruling monarchs and deceased queens, though the individual in question may have been much lower. For example, daughters of the first and second duke of Prussia seem quite similar to later queens consort of various places. Sons of medieval kings that died young, resemble reigning monarchs of those same nations. Funny indeed. Shilkanni 14:22, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not disagree with Shilkanni. However, I think it totally unacceptable to edit the actual convention without previously raising the topic on the discussion page. The particular wording used by Shilkanni, "Titles never held by them however cannot be postulated here" can certainly be improved. Noel S McFerran 01:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How would you express the thought that "articles should not have titles that were actually not used of the subject in question". Shilkanni 20:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your wording is clear and appropriate here, whereas your "postulated" version was both awkward and presumptuous. Perhaps surprisingly, WP naming conventions do not restrict a person's title to what it actually was in law or contemporary usage. Rather, the term that is most used currently in English is the standard -- even though the person to whom the term refers may never have been known by that name in life. Prince Henry the Navigator and Edward, the Black Prince are best known by their titles in English. Although Henry's article does not use his princely prefix (apparently because his true title was "infante"), a convincing case must be made for WP not to use the name and title that is best known in English.

However, the main point McFerran makes is that the convention you want to change has already been thoroughly discussed, vetted, approved and applied. If you want to change the WP naming convention from Where they have no title, use the form "Prince/ss {name} of {country}", to Titles never held by them however cannot be postulated here, that change needs to be proposed here, discussed, and approved by a new consensus. Therefore, I have reverted your change to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)#Other royals rule #4. Like Noel McFerran, I think your proposal has merit, but it must be discussed, not imposed.Lethiere 09:14, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, in the partial question of medieval high women who never married a king, I would like to see a new rule: a rule that leads to "Elisabeth of Hungary, Countess of Thuringia" and analogously the others. Cos, if we apply the "pre-marital terrotorial designation only" to all sorts of royal women who became countesses and duchesses, we end up with a plethora of women "of country" (causing a number of disambig needs) - which also is misleading, making them look like queens and/or reigning monarchs. (and btw, this has me to suggest the ordinal to all of those who were the only monarchs of their name, besides.) The two-part title has the essential part of pre-marital (which is how they are usually known in their fiefs' histories etc) but also has the husband's fief as sort of disambiguation. Shilkanni 20:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Sounds reasonable. At a later date, we follow usage to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire without difficulty. Objections? Septentrionalis 22:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: We should, however, acknowledge that there are cases (like Margaret of Burgundy and Joan of Kent) where there is primary usage for a simple name. Yes, I am intentionally choosing a married name and a maiden name. Septentrionalis 22:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    Actually, I like "Joan of Kent" and I think that is one of the rare names that do not need her husband's title attached. She, after all, was countess of Kent in her own right. Whereas I do not like "Margaret of Burgundy" at all - that is not fitting to our overall naming system. I will oppose attempts to move her to Margaret of Burgundy, which anyway may be a crowded place (= place for disambig). Elizabeth Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy would be acceptable. Shilkanni 14:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    Is Elizabeth a typo for Margaret of York...? I think Margaret of Burgundy is one of the cases which show that our overall naming system is an an artificial and overextended generalization; but that's a separate argument - as long as room is left for actual common usage to override WP systems, I'll be happy. Make it Joan of Kent and Elizabeth of Bohemia, then. Septentrionalis 17:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Baronets, as they hold hereditary titles, often for a large part of their lives, follow the same practice as hereditary peers and should have their title noted in the beginning of the article. The format is Sir John Smith, 17th Baronet. For the article title, this format should only be used when disambiguation is necessary; otherwise, the article should be located at John Smith.

I recently create a page Harington Baronets which was a red link from Baronetage of England because I wanted to create a stub for the regicide James Harrington because the link went to his cousin of the same name James Harrington. The article name I initially gave the article about the man was: James Harrington, 3rd Baron of Ridlington. I now know that Baron was wrong and since then the page has been moved to Sir James Harrington, 3rd Baronet.

Looking through the first few baronetage only pages in the list Baronetage of England, it seems to me that the above guidelines are not being followed.

• Bacon Baronets take the page name format of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1st Baronet
• Harington Baronets take the page name format of Sir James Harrington, 1st Baronet
• Hobart Baronets take the format Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet, of Intwood but this seems to be because there are also Sir Robert Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet, of Langdown lower down the page.

1. The guideline seems silly to me to state this format should only be used when disambiguation is necessary unless one is very familiar with the subject how does one know if any of the other members of the family, or a notable other person has the same name? Why this rule for this specific hereditary title and not for the others like Baron? It seems to me sensible to alter the guidline so that all baronets include baronet in the page name. It simplifies the naming of pages and seems to to be the current practice.
2. Should Sir be included in the page name? At the moment it seems to be, but the guidelines imply to me that it should not.
3. As with the Baronetage of England, should the name in the text of the page include "of Ridlington" (Is it part of the title)? Should it be included in the page name other than for disambiguation? --Philip Baird Shearer 15:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can certainly answer your last question: "of Wherever" should never be included in a Baronet's article name, even for disambiguation. It's not part of the title at all (plus it looks ridiculous). Proteus (Talk) 16:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Almost any discussion here prompts a debate about how some biography is wrongly titled in today Wikipedia. Though often titles of biographies have been arrived by a thoughtful process and even a consensus of editors, that does not prevent some users wanting to criticize such, not in the talkpages of those articles but of course here in the talk about how to formulate general rules. See diversions and distractions e.g below. Shilkanni 17:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The formulation of "Existing Royal Consorts are referred to by their consort name, eg. Queen Sofia of Spain. But when she dies, she will revert to her pre-marital title, ie, Sofia of Greece & Denmark. As widow, some appropriate addition (usually announced by the country in question) will be amended to (such as Queen Dowager or Queen Mother), with the new Queen of Spain being referred to by the consort designation. The same rule applies to male royal consorts." is not good when saying how the person reverts after death, as to the word TITLE. The established use in works of reference clearly does not use any title, it uses the simplified name precisely without any titulary. The word should be changed to "name" or equivalent. Queen Mary is not Princess Mary of Teck but Mary of Teck. Marie Antoinette is not Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria but Marie Antoinette of Austria. There are some who did not have terrotory, then the surname or something similar is used, as Anne Boleyn. The wording should reflect that no title is used, but a formulation "first name in its usual version" plus "territorial designation or if not used, then surname".
The formulation of "Past Royal Consorts are referred to by their pre-marital name or pre-marital title, not by their consort name, as without an ordinal (which they lack) it is difficult to distinguish various consorts; eg, as there have been many queen consorts called Catherine, use Catherine of Aragon not Queen Catherine." is not good as to the word TITLE. Shilkanni 15:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Referring to deceased consorts by the format <name> of <country> is used because that was their title. Royalty tend to use country as title for princes/ses of the blood. Sophia was Princess Sophia of Greece (the Denmark was not used generally until the abolition of the Greek monarchy to keep Greek republicans, who are a moody lot, happy) before marrying Juan Carlos. The only difference is that with consorts when returning to pre-marital title the Princess bit is dropped to indicate she was a queen consort somewhere. Name is only used if there was not a royal title to refer to. So the naming conventions are correct. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to agree that the TITLE is not to be used. I believe that the rule in NC should say it explicitly, as otherwise we get here all sorts of editors who are adding "Princess" there and here. The wording should say clearly that it is the "territorial designation", not any "title". Shilkanni 15:19, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No. No. No. You don't grasp it. Country is title for royalty, unless they had a different one at the point of marriage (eg, Marie of Edinburgh is called that because that was her title at the time of her marriage.) FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I grasp it, and to contrary, you use the word title for something that people usually do not use it for. Do you really have anything serious against being precise and wording the directive to say "territorial designation"? (Btw, do you grasp that there are editors to whom the word "title" means thgat they add "princess" and "archduchess" etc to these??) Shilkanni 15:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with using territorial designation is that it would sound as though we are making up a name. Perhaps we need a footnote to explain that royalty use country name as a title. Re the princess stuff the NCs do make clear that that should not be used. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:58, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The NC does not yet make it sufficiently clear, as there exist some editors who somehow believe that a married woman could be Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma. Shilkanni 16:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about:" Past Royal Consorts are referred to by their pre-marital name, not by their consort name, as without an ordinal (which they lack) it is difficult to distinguish various consorts; eg, as there have been many queen consorts called Catherine, use Catherine of Aragon not Queen Catherine. Existing Royal Consorts are referred to by their consort name, eg. Queen Sofia of Spain. But when she dies, she will revert to her pre-marital name, ie, Sofia of Greece. As widow, some appropriate addition (usually announced by the country in question) will be amended to (such as Queen Dowager or Queen Mother), with the new Queen of Spain being referred to by the consort designation. The same rule applies to male royal consorts." The examples THEN make it quite clear that a territory is usual, not any digged-up surname. Shilkanni 16:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An addition

Actually, I would like to add something to the text:"
Past Royal Consorts are referred to by their pre-marital name (first name as usually used, and a designation, usually a territory, if nonexistent, then surname or equivalent - no actual title is ever used, such as princess), not by their consort name, as without an ordinal (which they lack) it is difficult to distinguish various consorts; eg, as there have been many queen consorts called Catherine, use Catherine of Aragon not Queen Catherine.
Existing Royal Consorts are referred to by their consort name, eg. Queen Sofia of Spain. But when she dies, she will revert to her pre-marital name (same as in past consorts: "first name as usually used, and a designation, usually a territory, if nonexistent, then surname or equivalent - no actual title is ever used, such as princess"), ie, Sofia of Greece. As widow, some appropriate addition (usually announced by the country in question) will be amended to (such as Queen Dowager or Queen Mother), with the new Queen of Spain being referred to by the consort designation. The same rule applies to male royal consorts." Welcome to formulate the formula to be as precise as possible. Shilkanni 16:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(copied from above: The NC does not yet make it sufficiently clear, as there exist some editors who somehow believe that a married woman could be Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma. Shilkanni 16:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC) )[reply]

Anne is the wife of a king. For the same reason that Princess Caroline of Monaco is the Princess of Hanover, Anne is Queen Anne of Romania. Charles 16:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anne's title is not to be decided by Wikipedia. However, I would point out that Caroline is not titled here as Queen of Hanover. There are ample reasons why we should not title Anne as Queen either. Shilkanni 16:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Caroline is not titled Queen of Hanover because her husband is not titled King of Hanover. Anne's husband, Michael, however, is titled King of Romania. Anne is titled Queen Anne of Romania by various royal courts. Wikipedia can't decide titles, but apparently it can deny the title used by Anne and others to refer to her? What are these ample reasons? Charles 16:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I edited her opening paragraph and arrived at the following - it reflects my views what is the task of Wikipedia, which certainly is not to endorse any monarchical pretension. Shilkanni 16:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anne (Princess Anne Antoinette Françoise Charlotte of Bourbon-Parma, born September 18, 1923), is the wife of the former King Michael I of Romania, however married after his loss of the throne. As such, she is by courtesy also sometimes styled Queen Anne of Romania and treated sometimes as if being a queen consort. As wife of a nobleman who undisputedly is a Prince of Hohenzollern, she is sometimes referred as Princess Anne of Hohenzollern. Their family has reportedly some decade ago taken the surname "of Romania", whereby she would be known also as Anne of Romania, the title of the book in English that her son-in-law published about her life.

I have seen little to no evidence of Anne being referred to as Princess Anne of Hohenzollern. All of her daughters are titled as princesses of Romania and her husband is, by courtesy, the king of Romania. As such, Anne is the queen of Romania. Sources from basic article up to the British Royal Family use this title. For instance, here. Type CTRL+F on this page and type Queen Anne of Romania. If the basis of naming her is that her husband is undisputedly a prince of Hohenzollern, shouldn't he be at Prince Michael of Hohenzollern? After mentioning Anne's marriage, her son-in-law (the auther of that book) refers to her as queen.Charles 17:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To me, that "a little" evidence of her referred as "Princess Anne of Hohenzollern" is sufficient to mention it in the text of the article. Whereas I am not sure it should be the title of the article. However, I am against her article to be titled as "queen..." as it would be endorsement of royal pretension and not an undispited fact. Her queenship is a thing only to be mentioned in the text of the article, as are also other views of referring to her. You cannot make titles by what are titles of her relatives - that is at its worst, pure invention. How her son-in-law refers to her is immaterial as to titling, but a title of a published book is a (possibly small) sign how she is known. Her husbands article's location is directed by the scholarly usage to refer to deposed monarchs, and I accept it. That however says nothing to NPOV title to her, as she was not deposed but only maried afterwards, and was not an actual queen ever. If we want a specific NC for consorts married with deposed monarchs after loss of throne (such as Magda Lupescu), we shouold open a separate thread in this talkpage. I would possibly support something like "Margarita of Bulgaria", without any title, for living persons (as much as it may give an impression of being a reigning queen), and Jutta of Mecklenburg for deceased ones, as is conventional with decased consorts anyway. Shilkanni 17:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All of this aside, the fact of the matter is that Anne is overwhelmingly referred to as Queen Anne of Romania against all other forms of a name. The name also conforms to naming rules for consorts (which she is, the consort of a king, whether reigning or not) and conventions for the use of the most common name. I cannot understand your opinion why endorsing Parma-based and Hohenzollern titles is fine, but using the title wby which she is most known is not. If she is a Princess of Hohenzollern by virtue of marriage to a Prince of Hohenzollern, then she is a Queen of Romania by virtue of marriage to King of Romania. If she were otherwise called Princess Anne of Parma/Hohenzollern/whatever, that would be fine. However, she is called Queen Anne of Romania. Charles 18:26, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the place to jadda-jadda about her precise naming, if you do not propose a change to naming convention. Could you kindly keep to issues at hand here, and not distract. And, I am of the opinion that the naming convention does not mean that she would be titled queen. That has never been the intention of the convention written in the NC page. As to "common name", she is so little known outside certain royalist circles that no conclusion should be drawn from what they like to call her - such would be the recipe to get incredible titles for quite little notable things, and the stupider the less known it is (Anne would be queen but Simeon II a Mr Sakskoburggotski, if I read the google results enough - and we would possibly end up with an Empress Concepcion and a King Rosario, or something like that). I was weakly hinting that "Anne of Romania" would be somehow possibly acceptable to me, without queenly titulary. Then, lastly, where have you got an idea that I push any sort of Parma-based title to her - I would be more happy if you were to refrain from misrepresentation. Shilkanni 19:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean things personally for the most part, but it can only come out sounding like this. First and foremost, this is the place to talk about it since you took the time to create a subheading and continue the discussion. Secondly, when you have little else to say, do not accuse me of distracting. It is not very courteous and it is slightly hypocritical to state that I am distracting and then continue on afterward. You are only speaking of what is acceptable to you. I have had to back down when I was wrong before simply because my opinions aren't the be all that end all. The same holds true for yours. If Anne is so little known, she should not have an article on Wikipedia under a name which she is further little known by. On what basis are you allowed to draw such a conclusion as to give her the name given to a deceased consort or a monarch? By keeping Anne at the name after she dies, it would acknowledge that she was a consort in the first place. Oh, and I wrote Parma on the basis of one of my other opinions. I thought the "whatever" at the end was fairly inclusive of other territorial designations. Charles 20:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Under Existing Royal Consorts the example of Sofia of Spain is not well formulated and should be corrected: Sofia of Greece and Denmark is too convoluted and good works of reference will not do it in that way. Experts will name her simply as Sofia of Greece in the future. This has been seen in many earlier cases: Elena of Greece was the queen of Romania, and there have also been several princesses of two or more realms to become queens consort and deceased now - of them, only the most usual territory is regularly mentioned. For some reason, there is Marie of Edinburgh, not Marie of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and United Kingdom. This "pre-marital names rule" has always used the simplest territorial designation, thus is is untenable to convolute them here in Wikipedia. Shilkanni 15:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You miss the point. Marie of Edinburgh is called that because that was her actual pre-marital title. Royal House names generally are not added into royal titles by royalty. No-one ever writes Prince Charles of Windsor and the United Kingdom, Prince Henri of Bourbon and France. They write Prince Henri of France because that was his title. And of course Sofia will be of Greece. This of Greece and Denmark is used post-1974. She would be returning to her pre-1974 title, which was of Greece. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:26, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point is the example about Sofia of Greece. Readers may decide who is the person who missed the point. Shilkanni 15:54, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was not a house name, but rather a ducal territorial designation. Since the Greek royals are also Danish royals, both titles being derived from kingdoms, I believe both should be used when appropriate. Charles 15:29, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It, or a variant, was used as Royal House name in the UK from 1901 to 1917, however. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The context in which Shilkanni used it was valid, as a title. There is a better case for it as it would be the closest title deirved from a sovereign in the princess' ancestry. Charles 15:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree here with Jtdirl: She woul be Sofia of Greece after her death. One of the reasons for that is that when she married, only Greece was used, and that's the idea of "pre-marital" designation as instructed in the scholarly usage. Another reason is pure "keep it simple". Shilkanni 15:41, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We have been talking about this topic on and off, I am trying to at least get the parts out that we can all agree upon and which are most uncontroversial IMO. This one concern nobility that is not from the United Kingdom and have titles that are not translatable into English, or no English equivalent exists. Members of the non-British nobility, such as as Ritter, Edler, Chevalier, Sieur, Vidame, etc. have their titles in the original language. Examples: Carl Ritter von Ghega, Richard Edler von Mises, Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert, etc.

• Agreed. But non-English titles and honorifics should be italicized on first reference within the article, to avoid confusing style and name, e.g. Carl Ritter von Ghegal, Donna Paola Ruffo dei principi Ruffo di Calabria, Infanta Elena, Duchess of Lugo, etc.

Also concerning another point that exists for monarchs already 4. If a person is overwhelmingly best known by a cognomen, or by a name that doesn't fit the guidelines above, revert to the base rule: use the most common English name. Examples: Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, Henry the Lion, etc...".

Actually, the "base rule" reads: "Most general rule overall: use the most common form of the name used in English if none of the rules below cover a specific problem." King John Charles may be "English", but the Spanish monarch is known "in English" as King Juan Carlos. Lethiere 03:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To that I would like to formulate the same thing for nobility, for example Marquis de Sade and Baron Haussmann as exceptions. Gryffindor 16:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your desired rule, but I don't see it as new. The rule is simply often ignored here. The "English" form of the eponymous sadist's name would be "Marquess of Sade", which is the opposite of what I think you intend. Lethiere 03:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion on untranslatable titles is to keep them in their native language and append them to the end of the individual's given names. BTW, just a little note... Doesn't sieur simply mean lord? That is, Pierre Le Pesant, Lord of Boisguilbert? I am in agreement that cognomens can be used for nobles if that is what they are best known as. Charles 16:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sieur is a style not a title, and well illustrates why care should be taken in determining whether to translate the particle "de" in what look like noble names. The "sieur de Boisguilbert" bore that style -- but may neither have owned nor been suzerain of a fief called "Boisguilbert", which may long since have been sold, had its name changed, or may even never have existed. On the other hand, seigneur, which is also habitually translated as "lord", was never a hereditary title, but a description of a person's legal relationship to an estate, i.e. owner of an ennobled demesne. A "sieur" was untitled but necessarily noble and, without specific information, one can only assume that his "de" is just part of his name and should therefore not be translated. Whereas a "seigneur" definitely owned an estate, but might or might not be a commoner, thus should not be titled "Lord". A burgher who bought, e.g., the viscounty of Boisguilbert could not assume the corresponding title (even as a titre de courtoisie) without first being ennobled. Instead, he became, technically, the "seigneur de la vicomté de Boisguilbert", although vanity would prompt him to discreetly drop the "de la vicomté" whenever he could get away with it in society. Thus any "seigneur", strictly speaking, should have that word translated -- not in right of his title, but in right of his property. But the most accurate translation would be "owner" or "proprietor" rather than "lord". As for turning "sieur de" into "Lord of", historically a member of the English landed gentry is only known as "John Smith of Townsley Hall" if his family actually owns that property (or did, at least, sometime during his lifetime). A Frenchman's particle should be translated as "of" only if the estate in question belongs to his family, and not if it is merely part of his surname -- unless WP wants to move a certain article to "Elvis Presley of Graceland". See sieur vs seigneur. Lethiere 03:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, exceptional names are allowed to be used only if that is really really overwhelmingly best known. We would not want countings and recountings of google hits, if difference is only one or some orders of magnitude. Such exception is George Sand.
As much as it is possible to translate, translation should be made: sieur is "lord" and it should be translated. Whereas "vidame" and "captal" are non-translatable. I concede that it is best not to translate chevalier, ritter and edler, as translations would lead to unintelligible or undescriptive terms, but always when it is possible to translate (even somewhat artificially), a consensus should be required for decision not to translate. Shilkanni 23:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whereas styles should not even be in the NAME of an article, see our existing naming conventions.We do not allow HRH in the article's name, and IF sieur in someone's context is not a lordship but a style, it does not have a place in name of article. ~~

• Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between a style and a title. For instance, "Lord" can be part of an office e.g., Lord Mayor, a courtesy title e.g., Lord Louis Mountbatten, a substantive peerage e.g., Lord of Parliament or, like the French seigneur, it can be an old term for a kind of property owner e.g., Lord of the Manor. In some cases it may be appropriate to use in an article name e.g., Lord Randolph Churchill, Lord Alfred Douglas or Lord George Bentinck. WP's Naming Conventions forbid use of an honorific that is a form of address, but nothing of which I am aware forbids use of other styles.
• If you are proposing that the Naming Conventions should be changed to exclude such styles, fine, but let's be clear that it would be a change, and that the proposal becomes policy only if agreed upon here by consensus. Are you making that proposal? If so I would object that, since most royal and noble styles were of political and/or social significance when their possessors lived, stripping them in WP of styles which were habitually used during their lifetimes is POV, retroactively downgrading the importance of rank to conform to modern notions of egalitarianism. While I think some attention should be payed to that point of view lest we invite never-ending naming wars with those who deprecate what Arrigo used to call the obsequiousness of "royalty-romantics" on WP, we should compromise -- not capitulate.
• As for sieur and seigneur never being official titles of nobility in France (and being closer, instead, to the German "Edler" or the Dutch "Jonkheer"), it's well documented. But trying to convince someone who already believes otherwise is usually a pretty hopeless endeavor. Lethiere 01:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the particularity of Sade, in case he really was Marquis, he does not deserve an exception, as the format "Jabba-Jabba, Marquess of Sade" would be quite good. However, I received information that in fact he was not a marquis in real life, but comte de Sade. In that pretension (or suchlike) case, as he is overwhelmingly known as marquis de Sade, it must be regarded as his pen name and be treated as George Sand is treated. These facts should be checked, preferably by opening a discussion in the article's talk page. It's not a proper place to make individualized decision regarding his article here. The principle stands and can be discussed here. Shilkanni 10:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, but about the Marquis de Sade case, apparently his grandfather was the marquis, and in the French version they talk about something how as the eldest son he took the marquis title? didn't quite understand that part, but it does seem to have been part of his family, not just something that he made up. Maybe I shouldn't have brought up these special cases, can we at least agree on the foreign noble titles that lack a clear translation? unfortunately I have not found any article with a "vidame", but obviously that would be included as well. Gryffindor 14:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe in the French system, the older son takes a title one grade lower than his father. Or maybe even every member of the house except for the head does that... There is a newsgroup called alt.talk.royalty that has lots of info on it. Most families with vidame seem to be extinct. If it did come up,they could be named like Henri-Louis, vidame d'Amiens. Charles 15:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I read French, also. However, the facts seem to be that Sade was son of Count of Sade and succeeded him as count. His maternal grandfather indeed was marquess, but Sade did not presumably succeed him (it would be somewhat unusual, as the title would be inherited by males of his mother's lineage and usually not by his mother's descendants) - thus the grandfather is not a good explanation as source of marquessate. Besides, then he would have not been marquis de Sade, it would have been marquis de Carman. I did not find anything proper to show that Sade's own (agnatic) family had held any marquessate - and if so, why was his father called not a marquess, but a comte instead - you know, highest title is used in French noblesse, not usually secondary. Besides, certain info about Sade's own publications tell that at least one of HIS was titled "...tales of Comte de Sade", not marquis de Sade. Marquis was a higher title of nobility in France too. It would never have taken place that a count's eldest son would have held a marquis-title as a courtesy - the situation would have been reverse. Re family members generally using a lower title as courtesy, it is true at least with French dukedoms - Duc d'Harcourt's younger sons were "comte d'Harcourt"s as courtesy. But a comte's (substantive comte's, not courtesy comte's) heir would have been vicomte, not marquis. The facts suggest that he actually was comte, but for reason or another he used sometimes marquis - and that stuck for literary fame. Shilkanni 18:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I recall something about a family tradition of alternating the title for distinctiveness; but it is perfectly possible in France that he was claiming a rank without warrant and got away with it. Septentrionalis 22:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)~[reply]

Improbable. Those marquesses (every second in sch a scheme) who would be just counts, very likely would not have followed that tradition (nor authorities extending invitations etc), so such a tradition lacks credibility. Btw, policeman who checked Sade's doings, reported officially regarding "comte de Sade". Shilkanni 16:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Improbable or not, Septentrionalis appears to be correct: This family alternated use of the titles marquis and comte, and it does not appear to have been legal. Gilbert Lêly's Vie du Marquis de Sade (English translation by Alec Brown, published as "The Marquis de Sade: A Biography" 1961) details the many properties, positions, names, income and titles of the family in precise detail from the family's origin to the current Count Xavier de Sade. But when it comes to their noble title, he writes only "It was Gaspard François de Sade, the eldest son of Côme, who was the first of this family to bear the title of Marquis. He was occasionally referred to as the Marquis de Sade, but more often documents refer to him as the Marquis de Mazan. This is the title we find in his marriage contract, in his will and in the Bull of Pope Innocent XII of April 3rd, 1693 giving him the office for life of Colonel of the light cavalry of the Comtat." Conspicuously absent is any reference to Sade's lands being erected into a marquisate for him or his ancestors, or an act of registration of the title of marquis (or count) by the parlement of Provence. Both of these acts would have been necessary for any title of nobility to descend legally. It shows impressively meticulous accuracy that whenever the Sades' possession of ennobled real estate is mentioned by Lêly, seigneur is always correctly translated as "lord of the manor and not sloppily as "lord". The fact that the family indifferently used marquis and count simply reflects the fact that the Sades were noblesse chevaleresque, that is, of such ancient nobility that they had no known non-noble ancestors. Given the loftiness of their ancestry, the assumption of a noble title was de rigueur. Lethiere 07:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Before we go fiddling with this, I would like some actual source, preferably a reliable secondary source in English, who refers to the author under any other title than Marquis de Sade, which is where almost all English-speakers will expect to find him. Septentrionalis 22:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the way to deal with all of these is to look up the subject in a few standard English references, and see what they say; rather than attempting to formulate another artificial WP guideline. In particular: if none of the actual editors of these articles mind the present form, and the form in the article is used in English, why worry about it? Septentrionalis 22:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because there will always be some pesky user or even vandal who just love to move things around without reading the Wikipedia guidelines, trust me I've have had enough little battles with these sort of situations. So in order to preempt such conflicts for the future generations, I would rather we have it somewhere in writing, even if it means just to consolidate what we already have, just to be on the safe side. Another question, you guys seem to be more familiar with this topic, would this person Baroness Orczy, who is also not listed with her first name, be such a case as well? Gryffindor 00:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You should not battle so much. Shilkanni 16:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that problem; again, the solution is to document the references for the English name on the Talk page. In the case of Baroness Orczy, that's not hard: she's only notable for her writing, and the title pages of her books use that form.... Septentrionalis 02:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I am posting the proposed addition, anyone please feel free to polish the text or add/correct anything: Members of the non-British nobility, such as as Ritter, Edler, Chevalier, Sieur, Vidame, etc. have their titles in the original language. Examples: Carl Ritter von Ghega, Richard Edler von Mises, Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert, etc. Gryffindor 22:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But the language you want to use does not specify that this would apply only to titles/styles with no customary English translation. "Graf" should be translated since there is a word which is only used in English (as a title) to translate it and its continental variations: "count", which is never substituted for "earl" in English. And I don't understand what "the non-British nobility" clarifies? Lethiere 04:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The clause in the guideline page cannot be so open, to allow all titles to remain in native language. And, sieur is lord, and it can and should be translated, so it is not a valid example.
My polishing gives something like: Members of the non-British nobility whose titles are excessively misleading or impossible to translate into English, such as as Ritter, Edler, Chevalier, Vidame; will have their titles in the original language. Examples: Carl Ritter von Ghega, Richard Edler von Mises; but Hermann, Prince of Wied, Pierre Le Pesant de Boisguilbert, Baron Heinrich vom und zum Stein, Frederick III, Burgrave of Nuremberg, Athenais de Mortemart de Rochechouart, Marchioness of Montespan - this however reminds me that possibly they do not need the title at all in most cases. Shilkanni 22:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These two examples are better at Carl von Gheca and Richard von Mises - so they are not valid examples. No need to put their titles in at all. The guideline is possibly needed, but not for these two. Do you have any better examples? Shilkanni 22:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course titles are added, what kind of a question is this? Gryffindor 23:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You then have no better examples? It's a sign of failure if a question is responded by "what kind of a question is this". I feel that there is now some excess enthusiasm to use titles. Regarding these two examples, for titles really to be used in naming, we would need overwhelming evidence that their titles are used of them in those professional contexts they are notable for. It seems to me that titles are not generally used. When speaking of a scientist. Or of a technical constructor. They appear to be known simply as Richard von Mises and Carl von Gheca. Mises' brother is known simply without title, too. I oppose any attempts to mutate these persons from what they are usually known to a title-including version here by using this naming convention discussion as sort of decision about their correct names. Those two are not to be mentioned as examples, as they are at least controversial and I presume that actually these would be totally wrong if named with titles. It seems to me that a context where the proposed rule would have its place is if a titled person has been notable as a courtier (a context where nobility is and was a part of prerequisites and thus generally used) or as a hereditary officeholder a few centuries ago. Of non-hereditary officeholders, it is totally clear that Colbert should be Colbert here, not that marquess or count or whatever he ended up to be endowed as sompliment for his work and career. It may be questioned whether Metternich needs a princely title, but I am willing to let him have it in article name - he was known under it when notable "prime minister", after all, contrary to Colbert. Shilkanni 10:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is an obvious need to find a NPOV way to disambiguate the Hanoverian claimants with name Ernst August. It seems to me that all attempts to designate one of the various styles to each of them is doomed to fail. More or less, each of them was/is "prince of Hanover" and "duke of Brunswick" and therefore, if one is called by such designation, that name actually should always be a redirect to dab of all of them (= designating any of the names to only one of them is arbitrary). Now, we have a sort of ban to use a monarchical ordinal to any of them who were just pretenders. And however, currently (as of 16th May), thanks chiefly to moving efforts of editor"Cooldoug", all of them enjoy an ordinal.

I am asking whether it really is such a sin to allow them to have ordinals. After all, US bourgeoisie uses quite much those I, II, III... (instead of Sr and Jr) in legal names of commoners. And, one of the sources of ordinals in works of reference has actually been a retrospective assignation by genealogists to persons of antiquity (e.g Ptolemies and Seleucids) and of Middle Ages (Williams of Montferrat...) in order to disambiguate those persons though THEY never themselves used those numerals nor were such in use in their own time. Still, scholarly works are currently full of them. Regarding some of feudal families, the numeral in scholarly use actually sometimes is not the ordinal to show one's number in being a lord of a given territory, but rather a numeral showing that person's sequential place in their genealogy, the ruled territory having been variable (such as some William Nth of Montferrat did not actually rule Montferrat but another Italian place, and Welf Nth does not signify Nth Welf to rule Bavaria but Nth Welf of that pre-Guelph family, and also some female members of a family have got numerals though they did not reign nor rule in any way). Besides, in works of reference, there are numerals applied to holders of "peerage" titles, although some of them have never ruled any territory, them having been just holders of the title (and possibly some seat in a House of lords/peers/grandees/magnates). I admit that now, using numerals (which seem identical to regnal numbers) when a pretender is in question, seems as a support to that pretension and not only a genealogy-scholar way to disambiguate. I oppose giving endorsement to pretensions.

However, it seems to me that the only way to reach a s ustainable disambiguation with those Ernst A:s will simply be some use of numerals. And they have themselves used numerals, so it is not against the requirement not to use anything totally artificial. How about using numerals to those pretenders, but in a form which is not directly resembling a monarchical ordinal, such as Ernst August 4, Ernst August 5, Ernst August 6 and Ernst August 7, or Ernst August 4th, Ernst August 5th, Ernst August 6th and Ernst August 7th?? (you got the idea of the principle, details can be sorted later) - Comments, please. Shilkanni 09:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there is need to disambiguate people further than what there names and functions allow, years of birth and death should be used for disambiguation. ie. Ernst August (1600-1700). Zocky | picture popups 11:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dates are a possibility; but so are ordinal numbers. When ordinal numbers are assigned by an author of a work to distinguish people (instead of being ordinal numbers actually used by the people themselves), they are often indicated by being enclosed in parentheses: e.g. Ernst Augustus (II) vs Ernst Augustus II. This would at least keep the article names short, making for easier linking. Of course, this would require agreement on which ordinals to use, and Wikipedians can't agree on anything. So perhaps dates would be the path of least resistance. - Nunh-huh 13:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dates are messy. (Do you use birth-death dates, dates when they were claimants, what happens when someone is looking for someone they know by ordinal, but by years, etc? I think an ordinal in parentheses is much more workable. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 13:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I do not appreciate (years) in article titles. But I do not appreciate parentheses in article titles, either. Both are messy. Shilkanni 13:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Nunh-huh, use Roman numerial ordinals. I don't understand why this topic seems to be so difficult.... Gryffindor 14:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To me, there is nothing wrong with the ordinal in this case because Ernest Augustus' titles are not in the form of a monarch's. Hanover is not a principality, but he isn't named as a king either. So the use of the ordinal is fine. The issue now may possibly be whether to use Ernest Augustus or Ernst August. I'm a fan of the former, but common usage may sway in the other direction. But I have to ask, what of Ernest Augustus II? Are we depriving him of his crown princely title here? Can he not be Ernest Augustus II, Crown Prince of Hanover or must we use the Cumberland title? May both be use? That is, Crown Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumbberland? Or is that Cumber-some? (hehe) Charles 15:08, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Parentheses around Roman numerals seems optimal to me. In terms of the Duke of Cumberland, he deprived himself of his "Crown Prince" title when he succeeded his father in 1878. Until that time he was known as "The Crown Prince of Hanover," but after his father's death he became known as "The Duke of Cumberland." Ernst August III, by the way, should probably be "Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg." Or what not. john k 16:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't Ernest August (III) simply created Duke of Brunswick though? It gets rid of some length to the title. It seems before he was given that title, he was as much a Duke of Brunswick as he was of Lunenburg, as all members of the house were. I think simply Brunswick would be sufficient. Charles 17:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC) Forgot to sign my comment[reply]

It seems there is some opposition against giving ordinals to those claimants, and some support for giving them ordinals. There is some opposition against parenthetic titles, but also support for it. Nunh-huh has suggested that ordinals that are different than those which the pretenders themselves used would be acceptable. Shilkanni 17:46, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ernest Augustus 3rd Cumberland's case should be discussed at his article page - the overall solution is not dependent upon it (were he either E.A, 3rd d of C, or Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, we see that both names are unique). Whereas Ernest Augustus the reigning duke of Brunswick's ordinal is quite necessary (and acceptable, if we know what it factually was) since if he is without ordinal, the name is the same who belongs to the whole bunch - they all are "E.A.,duke of Brunswick" (or "B-L"). Shilkanni Shilkanni 17:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I were to decide what numerals to use of those pretenders, I would make it on genealogical grounds and name them as follows: the guy who lived 1914-87 would be Ernst August VI,

the guy born in 1954 would be Ernst August VII and the guy born in 1983 would be Ernst August VIII. Those are genealogical numerals which are (as I understand) maximized to highest possible. And they have the advantage of being such which were not used by the actual pretenders, but higher. I cannot accept endorsing pretension, therefore the numbers should not be the same. Shilkanni 17:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I were to decide what dates to use of those pretenders, seeing that two of themn are alive and only one deceased, I would use birth year only: the guy who lived 1914-87 would be Ernst August (1914), the next Ernst August (1954) and the youngest Ernst August (1983). Shilkanni 23:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would add the death date for the first of these; its what we do for ambiguous nobles who died long before Wikipedia. Septentrionalis 03:26, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are several problems here.

There are several titles involved. There is no consensus that they, or anyone, are Dukes of Brunswick or Brunswick-Lüneburg (since 1918). There is consensus against their being Dukes of Cumberland (since 1919). WP should not impose such titles if they are not consensus. This leaves Prince of Hanover.

Roman numerals are useful for

• Reigning families, even such bizarre cases as the two houses of Reuss
• Clearly non-reigning families, like the Bernouillis (or, for that matter, the Berkeleys).
• They are undesirable for families whose royalty is disputed. (We do not, for example, have an article called Henry V of France; that's a redirect, unless somebody's been meddling with it.) I think inventing our own Roman numerals is excessive subtlety; most readers will see them as an endorsement of the pretence, and miss the point that we are using nonstandard values.

What we do do for other pretending houses is to list them under their generally accepted courtesy titles (Duke of Anjou, Count of Paris, or whatever). Fortunately, this has not (yet) produced ambiguity in the French cases: the names are long, and the titles of pretence are getting flashier as the hope of restoration dims.

I would be bold, not bother to disambiguate, and have the following articles:

• Ernest Augustus I of Hanover
• George V of Hanover
• Ernest Augustus, 3rd Duke of Cumberland
• Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick (this is the usage of the 1911 Britannica [7])
• A section of House of Hanover, devoted to the father of the above and his now-deceased son; these should not have more than a few sentences of notability.
• Ernest Augustus, Prince of Hanover. Septentrionalis 21:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • And if it is not clear: I would not use either Georg or Ernst August for any of these; that's for the German Wikipedia, which uses Ernst and Georg for all of them, and for George III too.

I really dont see whats worng with leaving the titles at Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover, since this is his legal name translated into english. (Ernst August Prinz von Hanover V) would be his German name. And I also dont see how this is a POV issue since there never was any legal title called Prince of Hanover, I can however see how it was a POV issue if we were to constantly use styles. But as I see it calling him Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover is the most correct way to title an article. Since the title of Prince of Hanover never really existed in the legal or political sense, then how is he claiming to be something. I mean his legal name is Ernst August Prinz von Hanover. Mac Domhnaill 21:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia articles are not decided by legal or official name; and this is a perfect example why. "By what law, Bezonian?" English? German? Austrian?
• If Prince of Hanover is not a title, asserting that he is the fifth Ernest Augustus to be Prince of Hanover is nonsense. The use of that numeral is a pretence to the Duchy of brunswick. Septentrionalis 22:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I doubt that even their legal names contain that "V" or "IV". Besides, if we follow the legal name, then they are NOT translated, they are Ernst August Prinz von Hannover - Shilkanni 22:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh people, I just realized that Ernest August born in 1914 actually was officially something like Hereditary Duke of Brunswick until 1918, i.e the equivalent of crown prince of that duchy. That was not his main title of pretension, in use, but at least in our current rules, he truly was that and that title can be assigned to him personally also after loss of that monarchy, as they do not lose titles because of revolution. What do you think: a title which he did not use particularly much, would it be the article title here in this situation? Shilkanni 11:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prince of Hanover is a title which has been somehow in real existence, as their ancestors were Prince-Elector of Hanover, i.e "Reigning Prince of Hanover", in same sense as their neighbor was Prince of Wolfenbuttel. Shilkanni 22:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The English for that is Elector of Hanover; long since merged with the Kingdom of Hanover, now extinct. Septentrionalis 02:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And however, these claimants derive their that "prince of Hanover" partially just from that title. These situations are such where deposed heirs regard all merged titles to belong to them and having ability to use them, in form which is convenient for them. You know: when title "reigning Duke of Bavaria" merged in Elector of Bavaria and then both merged in King of Bavaria, we see that after 1918 loss of monarchy, the heads of that dynasty have regarded themselves entitled to use Duke of Bavaria (as their chief title of pretension). The pattern seems to me to be simply that using King or Elector would get them laughed at, but Duke being "credible". Shilkanni 11:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there was a Weimar Republic law that stated that only those titles that were shared by all members of a family could become surnames. The King of Bavaria was the only one in his family with this title; his sons and brothers would use duke. Hence "Herzog von Bayern" became their legal surname after the abolishment of titles. Chl 20:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is an alternate, simple solution. We have two articles for people named Ernest Augustus, Prince of Hanover who have short articles, and are in part notable as father and son. Consider Easley Blackwood, which deals with the same situation by conbining the two articles. Why not the same here? Septentrionalis 03:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, three. There is the grandson, born in 1983, too. However his article is IMO an example of zero-articles, as it does not comtain anything else than non-notable trivia about him personally and then some slight amount of notable information that can very naturally be put into his parent's article. This has been a problem: all sorts of non-notable royals get an own article, usually on basis of them being XXXth on the line to the British throne, and that is often the only individual fact mentioned in the stub. And some people here prevent deletion of such stubs! Shilkanni 10:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that would be the cleanest solution. Charles 03:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would be clean, provided it were stable. But it probably will not. I predict: if we combine two articles, sooner or later someone will create them anew. Separate them. Resulting in several separate stubs for the same biography. Pessimistic but realistic. If we arrive in that sort of solution, it is not any general rule, and should be talked in these two guys' talkpages (too). A general rule from THIS discussion could be the unconditional ban on ordinals of persons who are pretenders (actually, that rule already exists here). The name of that combined article is not easy, either, as "E.A., Prince of Hanover" is a name that may refer to other biographied persons too. Shilkanni 11:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would at this stage again remind that this discussion is for seeking opinions and possible consensus about naming the CLAIMANTS with names E.A. - King George V remains what is correct for him, as well as King E.A. I. And duke E.A. III, having been reigning monarch of another state, is presumably named on that basis, though he also claimed Hanover. We can even say that E.A.II, i.e the one currently under Cumberland, is a separate case as he can be Crown Prince of Hanover and there is no ambiguation in that. Effectively this leaves us with decision about policy to the THREE most recent Ernests Augusts. Shilkanni 11:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Currently we have the following situation:

• Ernest Augustus I of Hanover (1771 - 1851) has the first ordinal. He is clarified as a King of Hanover and there is a succession table below pointing to predecessors and successors.
• Ernest Augustus II of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland (1845 - 1923) has the second ordinal and the clarification he was Head of House.
• Ernest Augustus III, Duke of Brunswick (1887 - 1953) has the weird case of the title merging his ordinal as Head of House with the title of Duke of Brunswick. I would consider Ernest Augustus III of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick to be a more natural name. He is again noted as Head of the House of Hanover in the succession table.
  • If he is not Ernest Augustus III as Duke of Brunswick-[Wolfenbuettel], we should not use the number. Septentrionalis 18:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Ernest Augustus IV, Prince of Hanover (1914 - 1987) also seems reasonable since it as it points out the German version of his name and the succession clarifies that he was Head of House instead of King, Prince etc.
  • I find it extremely implausible that he would have been created Prince of Hanover before 1918. The number is unnecessary and misleading. Septentrionalis 18:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • You're thinking British here. There was no such thing as creation of princes (Prinzen) in Germany. It was most likely a title he inherited by birth. Chl 20:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover (1954 - ) has the curiosity of turning from English to German name. Otherwise the only issue is that we do not clarify that Prince of Hanover is part of his legal name. The pretendor box and succession table both clarify his position.
  • Arguments about legal names remain contrary to policy; the validity of the law is PoV. What is he called? Septentrionalis 18:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Then we have Ernst August (VI) of Hanover who has not yet succeeded as Head of House. Again the German name and this time no clarification that this means the House of Hanover and not Hanover, the capital of Lower Saxony.
  • Has he any claim to notability other than as the son of his father? This is what redirects are for. Septentrionalis 18:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest either renaming the first four from "Ernest Augustus" to "Ernst August" or the last two to "Ernest Augustus". The ordinals seem fine as they are with only III needing the clarification of Hanover as his family name. We don't accept any pretense by noting who has Head of House and their order as such. There is no confusion when somebody actually opens the article.

"This has been a problem: all sorts of non-notable royals get an own article, usually on basis of them being XXXth on the line to the British throne, and that is often the only individual fact mentioned in the stub. And some people here prevent deletion of such stubs! "

I would be one of them. All the articles you mention are linked from the Line of succession to the British Throne and are part of a series. They do not stand alone and we might have a chance to expand them sooner or later. However I am curious how come there are examples of minor members of a House getting articles even when the Head of House or their direct ancestor do not? How for example did we manage to have an article on Victoria Luise of Prussia when we do not have articles on her father, three brothers, two nephews and four nieces who are all ahead of her in that line? User:Dimadick

• I have entered some objections to the numbering above. Septentrionalis 18:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

About ordinals: For practical reasons, I don't like ordinals that aren't in common use. To assign the correct ordinal to a person, one has to know how many ancestors with the same name there were, and this is often hard to establish, or may even be a question of historical research (in the case of Ernst August: do we start counting in the 19th century, or do we include Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg?). After all, there is no guarantee that all ancestors with the same name lived shortly before the person in question. Hence, parenthetical years are better; one can establish them without much difficulty.

About translating names: For consistency, only the names of rulers or historic nobles should be translated unless a translated version is in common use. Only in very rare cases people still do it with non-rulers. I don't see the need for an exception for pretenders here.

About the Ernest Augusti:

• As per Shilkanni, the first three are out of the scope of this discussion.
• Ernest Augustus IV, Prince of Hanover (1914 - 1987): Should have no ordinal, since no ruler. Wasn't even especially notable, so disambiguating by years works fine. Should probably be considered a historical noble since he was born before the abolishment of monarchy (assuming 1918 would be the proper cut-off for nobility-caused name translations in Germany), so I'd support Ernest Augustus, Prince of Hanover, with parenthetical years if needed.
• Ernest August V, Prince of Hanover (1954 - ): No ruler and not historical, so no ordinal and no translation of given name. A difficult question is whether the surname should be translated. So he might be Ernst August, Prince of Hanover or Ernst August Prinz von Hannover. No parentheses should be needed since he is the most famous of the three.
• Ernest August VI (1983- ): Not very notable, if he needs an article, then it should have the same title as his father with added parenthetical years. Chl 20:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My version (with kudos to Shilkanni for wading through all the detritus, both that of history and WP!)

1. Ernst August I, King of Hanover 1771-1851
2. Ernst August, Crown Prince of Hanover (highest title ever held) 1845-1923
3. Ernst August, 3rd Duke of Cumberland (title of pretence he used)
4. Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick (as reigning monarch) 1887-1953
5. Ernst August, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick (highest title ever held: "Erbherzog" not used) 1914-1987
6. Ernst August, Prince of Hanover born 1954
7. Prince Ernst August of Hanover born 1983

Lethiere 05:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It must be remembered tthat those who wish an ordinal to be used, have the burden of showing it being overwhelmingly used in real life, and the burden of gathering a clear consensus, as using an ordinal of these three latest guys IS against the guideline. The naming convention forbids ordinals from pretenders. An exception requires consensus.
I conclude that there is a numbe of discussants who have opposed ordinals for these three latest guys, and therefore there is no consensus to allow that exception. The rule (no ordinal to pretender) stands. It will be respected and anyone is allowed to move these articles from locations which incluse an ordinal.

Question: I'm probably opening up a can of worms, however why are some kings named "name of Germany" when Germany did not exist back then? I know that this discussion has been raging on back and forth. The format Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor is fine. However we have "Albert II of Habsburg" who is under Albert II of Germany, but it's Philip of Swabia, and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg. So why is Philip of Swabia not "Philip of Germany"? I think that Philip is in the right category, however then it should be "Albert II of Habsburg", etc. IMO. Then we have this case here Wenceslaus, King of the Romans. My proposal is to get rid of the "of Germany" part, since I know that creates alot of controversy and confusion (didn't exist, etc etc.) and have a format similar to the Holy Roman Emperors. Either keep them with the dynastic name, such as "Philip of Swabia", or have the format "name, German King", "name, King of the Germans", "name, King of the Romans" or "name, Roman-German King" (Römisch-deutscher König). Gryffindor 18:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Roman-German King isn't a particularly good title, in my opinion. It seems needlessly complex. Would "Name", Roman King be a better title? If not, I think we ought to stick to "Name", King of the Romans. The format "Name", German King looks good to me though. Charles 19:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Germany most certainly did exist (it was one of three component kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, the other two being Italy and Burgundy), but I agree that it's probably best not to include it in article titles (this would also allow us to move Kaiser Wilhelm's dad to Friedrich III of Germany or Frederick III of Germany). That said, I think we should use the dynastic name if that is the most commonly used, otherwise "Name, King of the Romans." john k 22:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Use the dynastic name, in other cases "Name, King of the Romans". So "Philip of Swabia" remains where he is, and it would be "Albert II of Habsburg". The only problem I see arising from that is that users could confuse him to be the ruler of Habsburg, Switzerland (the place) and he was the second Albert of it. Maybe add something behind the name then? "Rudolph I of Habsburg, King of the Romans"? I am trying to go with the most common name, because it really is overwhelmingly "Rudolph of Habsburg" in literature and books. So that dynastic part has to be included, otherwise no one would recognise who this is. Gryffindor 09:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose using those "dynastic names". They are kings of a country, and are to be named equally. There is no sense in putting one to king Philip of Swabia and another to Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor - and also because an article text very easily goes to express "king Sigismund of Luxemburg" as has happened all too often with consorts, I remember seeing articlev texts resembling "queen Anna of Braganza", "Empress Maria of Savoy" and "queen Frederica of Anhalt" just because it is all too easy to put the title before the name which does not include the name of the kingdom and not to pipe it. Those roman kings who did not have emperor-confirmation, could be format Adolf, German King or rather Adolf, Roman King, which also is good becaise it resembles those emperors who are format Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor. I actually oppose that "of Germany" because it is anachronistic - they were rather "Gunther of East Franks" and "Henry of East Franks", but presumably we do not want to start use the nice name of Kingdom of East Franks or Kingdom of Ostrofrancia and all perquisites then created here. And, besides, I do not like formulation Wilhelm II of Germany as it rather should be "Wilhelm/"William, German Emperor"

Please don't forget to sign your comments. You seem to be confusing two things here, we are not talking about Holy Roman Emperors, but the category below that, rex romanorum which means King of the Romans. Philip of Swabia is universally known under that name, not as "Philip, King of the Romans", unless we want to get dangerously close to original research. That's the issue we are trying to solve here. Gryffindor 22:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think am not confusing anything. Whereas a person who does not want to see a larger picture, is in a wrong track. When formulating a policy for a subset of monarchs, we should definitely relate that policy to the policy that produces names for the nearest subset. HRE is actually the nearest subset. We do not want to end up with policy where these are treated in a totally different way than the nearest subset is. Such would cause all too much confusion. Hope you did not get too confused. Shilkanni 16:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The French Wikipedia has a great overview of the titles the various kings used: [8]. Basically, until Otto III they called themselves Kings of the East Franks, and starting with Henry II they called themselves Kings of the Romans instead. So, what to name our articles for the ones that were kings but not emperors? I agree that this is an issue that needs to be decided; it it is confusing that there is no consistent naming scheme.

• With dynastic name (e.g. "of Habsburg"): contradicts the conventions used for other monarchs, and so not good.
• With "of Germany", which according to our conventions means "King of Germany": not good, because this was usually not their primary title. The title of King of Germany was less important than their title of King of the Romans, because Germany was smaller than the (Holy) Roman Empire. We have the naming convention that when an individual has several titles, the highest is used, and so King of the Romans should prevail.

This leaves the issue of how to fit "King of the Romans" (or "King of the East Franks", for the early ones) into our naming scheme. The problem is that our naming scheme assumes that kings are titled after their country, but "of the Romans" is not immediately a country name. We have a similar situation with the Kings of the Scots, which we have listed under "of Scotland" (see King of Scotland, e.g. James V of Scotland). In analogy, this would give us "of the Holy Roman Empire", e.g. Philip of the Holy Roman Empire. For the earlier ones, it would be "of East Francia" (a separate question is whether East Francia should redirect to Holy Roman Empire). This solution has the advantages that it matches conventions used for other countries, that it is close to the correct historic original, and that it makes clear which country these guys are rulers of (unlike ", King of the Romans", which is more precise, but will make most people believe they are dealing with ancient Rome). Chl 01:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer "Roman King", i.e Albert II, Roman King. Shilkanni 10:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree with you Chl, because it will remain Philip of Swabia and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg, so those versions are definetly legitimate. Moving it to "Adolf, King of the Romans" is original research. Therefore we have to use in this case dynastic names, or a combination of both, something that I stated earlier above. Gryffindor 10:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whereas I believe Weilburg to be actually incorrect and anachronistic when Adolf the king is in question. Shilkanni 14:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adolf, King of Romans and Philip, King of Romans are hardly something like original resarch, since a multitude of material, including documents from their own eras, call them such. I have seen transcripts of old documents where these kings call themselves "rex Romanorum" - and there are sources that call them Roman kings, as they are calling crowned ones as Holy roman emperors. I suspect that several accusations of "original research" tend to go too far and may nowadays be used perhaps for non-acceptable purposes. Shilkanni 14:11, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, for example, see [9] -- one can clearly see the words ROMANORVM REX (Latin for "King of the Romans") on Rudolf's tomb. Chl 17:55, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"X, King of the Romans," which analogizes to "X, Holy Roman Emperor," seems like the best option. "Roman King" is rarely used in English - "King of the Romans" is by far the more common usage. I am also not certain why Gryffindor believes "Philip, King of the Romans," to be original research. In cases where someone does not have an ordinal and is well known by their dynastic name, though, I'd prefer to include it. Perhaps Philip of Swabia, King of the Romans, Adolf of Nassau, King of the Romans... john k 19:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The dynastic names really should be mentioned in the article. Ok, quick Google search: "Adolf, King of Romans" 0 hits. "Adolf of Nassau, King of the Romans", 0 hits. "Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg" has 275 hits and "Adolf of Nassau" has 20,900 hits. Indeed, using "Adolf, King of the Romans" does smack of original research. Another case, 368 hits for "Rudolf I of Habsburg", 447 hits for "Rudolph I of Germany", but 19,000 hits for "Rudolf of Habsburg", I mean what is going on here? How did Wikipedia get it so wrong? Gryffindor 13:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at it like this, the problem is much deeper. "Victoria of the United Kingdom" (our name): 30,000 hits. "Victoria of England": 40,000 hits. "Queen Victoria": 8,000,000 hits. There is a tension here between using common names and having a systematic naming scheme. Chl 18:07, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a professional librarian, I'm a great advocate of following usage to determine the authoritative name for a person. This is what the Library of Congress has done for decades in determining what subject heading should be used for a person. But Google hits are different from scholarly usage. If we followed Google then we would have to rename articles on human bodyparts to various colloquial terms. Rather, we should look at how somebody is named in, for example, other encyclopedias and in published monographic biographies of that individual.

Current usage in scholarly literature is far more important than coming up with some artificial usage which tries to create consistency where there isn't any. Noel S McFerran 20:24, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from the Ernest Augustuses, there seems to be irregularity in the titling of the dukes of Brunswick, Wolfenbüttel line. I have always seen them titled as Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, not simply as Dukes of Brunswick-Lunenburg. All members of the house of Welf were dukes and duchesses of Brunswick and Lunenburg, mostly always shorted to Brunswick-Lunbenburg in English. Additional dignities and territories within the family usually took the a form with the territory hyphenated at the end, (i.e. Brunswick-Lunenburg-Wolfenbüttel, shortened to Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel). The form Brunswick-Lunenburg in the article titles for ruling members of the Wolfenbüttel line seems to be misleading and against conventional usage. Can they be renamed to Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel? Charles 22:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These are two different titles, relating (after the High Renaissance) to different territories. (I would deprecate use of Lunenburg instead of Lüneburg unless current usage can be shown; it is as least as obsolete as Leghorn.) Septentrionalis 17:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the Lunenburg... It's a habit I won't drop outside of Wikipedia as I consider it the best formal English usage, but I digress. As I have noted before regarding Brandenburg, it was a frequent practice to combine divisions of a territory with a main title shared by all members of the family (I brought this up with Brandenburg-Bayreuth, which peculiarly affixes a territory in Nuremburg to Brandenburg, which wasn't particularly close. Charles 19:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a somewhat complicated situation. The dukes of all subdivisions of Brunswick-Lüneburg always used the title of Herzog zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg (Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg). But since at most periods, the duchy consisted of several, almost completely independent parts (such as Wolfenbüttel, Calenberg/Hanover, and Lüneburg/Celle), people often use different territorial names to make clear which subdivision a certain duke was ruler of, e.g. "duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel", or "duke of Brunswick-Celle". There are three problems with these subdivisional designations though:

1. They were never official.
2. There is no standardized form for them. While Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel is pretty common, the rulers of Calenberg, for example, are called "Brunswick-Calenberg" or "Hanover" or "Brunswick-Calenberg-Grubenhagen" in various texts.
3. They are easily confused with genealogical designations such as "Brunswick-Bevern". There never was a territory or subdivision of Brunswick-Bevern, instead this was simply a junior line of the dukes that originally did not rule (see Ferdinand Albert I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg).

Additionally, it frequently happened that the same duke ruled over several subdivisions at once, so that naming would become more complicated if he was to be designated by subdivision. Chl 18:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel should be designated by subdivision. Other commonly used ones should probably also be used, like Brunswick-Calenberg, or Brunswick-Celle, and so forth. Obviously, it can get confusing, but better to use the subdivisions than to leave it all as just "Brunswick-Lüneburg". john k 18:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I was going to post something similar, but there was an editing conflict :-) In all actuality, it isn't too hard once the basic, common designations are put down, as John noted (Celle, Calenberg, Wolfenbüttel). It is a lot better than leaving all at Lūneburg/Lunenburg, which I suppose is similar to putting all rulers of Saxon duchies, the Saxon grand duchy and royal Saxony at "of Saxony". Charles 19:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Those who are requiring that official, legal names and nothing else are to be used, remember that these "b-Wolfenbuttel" etc were NOT legal nor official names of principalities. They were and are just practical expressions of such. Used in historiography, and in informal contemporary material, but not legally. However, I support the use of simple and practical usages, also regarding those. If we were not in need of disambiguating things (there were a bunch of those with identical or almost identical first names), I would support using just "Brunswick". However, many dozens of these dukes are notable in terms of them now or in near future having articles here. Therefore I concur in using "Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel". I am not so sure about "Luneburg-Celle", but it probably should be used. Hanover is self-evident to be used. Whereas I say that those genealogical (re)constructions, such as Brunswick-Bevern, shall not be used. After all, no one actually was Duke of that - it was nothing that was governed/ruled. Our usual habit has been to put Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick to those who did not reign but were just titled, or just enjoyed a shared right together, e.g with a big brother, the nominal co-rule, whereas Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick denotes a real ruler. Although those differences should not be used as disambiguators, that cutom is good to continue when naming a biography as knowledgeable readers deduce from the beginning already whether the guy was ruler or cadet. However, the post-Napoleonic dukes of B should be just B, nothing added. And, actually the HRE recognized Wolfenbuttel and Calenberg and a few others as "principalities" - see relevant published lists of vote-entitled principalities of imp.diet. Those, in my judgement, are substantive principlalities and could ven be used alone in biography names, which would make it easier. A telling example would be that, weas it George William, Duke of Luneburg-Celle and others could be George, Duke of Calenberg, Ferdinand, Duke of Wolfenbuttel, Henry, Duke of Grubenhagen. This would be acceptable if those entities were recognized as own votes in the diet.
A different point, a rebuttal to a sideline allegation at the atart of this thread: It is just a very recent concoction that ALL they were (dukes and) duchesses. Duchess was not used of daughters until somewhere from 17th or 18th century. Earlier they just were, in usage and in titularies, "femalename + of + Bsomething". I oppose putting anachronisms here. The whole fabrication that medieval German hihg-noblesse women were born as countesses, duchesses etc is an extrapolation of -here- intressents of current and recent royals, eager on titles, who think that the recent noble titulary practices have always been in use. Go check material from 16th century and earlier: these girls were just "filia regii" and got usually their first titles when married ones. Shilkanni 18:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1) About Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick: It should be either "of Brunswick-Lüneburg" (if we use the official title), or "of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel" (if we use the informal name of the territory). There is no point in complicating things further by having a third possible designation, an abbreviated "of Brunswick".

2) "Duke of Lüneburg-Celle" or "Duke of Wolfenbüttel" etc.: these titles would be new inventions by Wikipedia -- probably not a good idea. Chl 22:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, a number of the Brunswicks have been moved around lately. Same for the Oldenburgs (Schleswig-Holstein). It seems that in practice all of these divisions and additional territories were hyphenated to Brunswick, whether official or not. Charles 22:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One quick note: keep in mind that the official title, Brunswick-Lüneburg, is hyphenated too... This is what causes part of the confusion. For example, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was a subdivision of Brunswick-Lüneburg. But there was also a Lüneburg subdivision (which later came to be known as Brunswick-Celle, when the capital was moved from Lüneburg to Celle). So there is really no good hyphenated/abbreviated name for the Lüneburg subdivision, because Brunswick-Lüneburg is already the name for the whole, undivided state. Also, I do not think that in practice the hyphenated/abbreviated names were always used (Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel etc.). I have never seen them used before the 16th century or so, and Brunswick-Lüneburg and its subdivisions were around long before then. Many German history books use Brunswick-Lüneburg instead of the subdivisional names. Chl 17:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with "X, Duke of Brunswick-Bevern" as a title of an article? Why does it matter that Brunswick-Bevern was never an estate of the Empire with Landeshoheit? We have Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, and the Dukedom of Norfolk was never a sovereign or semi-sovereign entity. That German noble titles without properties of sovereignty can be hard to distinguish from German noble titles with properties of sovereignty is neither here nor there? john k 22:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a problem because this adds yet another possible name for the articles -- yet another level of confusion. If we allow genealogical designations too, we have (counting all namings proposed in this thread), four possible names for, e.g., Ferdinand Albert II:

1. Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg if we use his official title
2. Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel if we use the subdivision he ruled
3. Ferdiand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick if we use an abbreviated form
4. Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Bevern if we use his genealogical designation

Who's supposed to be able to figure out which one is the best in each case? It seems to me the point of having a naming convention is to be able to assign a name to an article in a straightforward, unique way. BTW, usage won't really help us with the decision here, because all of these are actually used. The comparison with the Duke of Norfolk does not hold, because Duke of Norfolk was his official title, even if he never ruled over anything, while Bevern was invented by genealogists. Chl 17:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I must disagree with Charles here. "Duke of Brunswick" simpliciter is what is actually used for Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick and his nephew, Charles, Duke of Brunswick (So the New Cambridge Modern History. As an example of why hyphenation is so dangerous: when they do hyphenate him, in the indes, it is as Brunswick-Bevern.) Septentrionalis 22:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The title of the article Margaret of Connaught is presently under discussion. There are two issues here:

1. How do we fare with consorts whose pre-marital title was a UK courtesy title, like Princess Maud of Wales? She is presently at Maud of Wales, while other ways to go would be either Princess Maud of Wales or Maud of the United Kingdom.
2. What to do with a crown princess consort that never became queen, such as Margaret? Should she be treated as a "royal consort" (and possibly be either Margaret of Connaught or Margaret of the United Kingdom) or as normal royalty (and be Princess Margaret of Connaught)? And if the first line is agreed upon, what to do with her daughter-in-law who was not even a crown princess — accept her too as Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha or draw the line there and have Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha? Basically, who should be treated as a "royal consort"?

As whatever decision arrived at might affect other articles as well, I thought it would be a good idea to inform here about the discussion. Any input is, of course, appreciated. -- Jao 21:39, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that crown princesses should have their title affixed to the front of their maiden name, i.e. Princess Sybilla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. That is the way it is generally done now on Wikipedia and I see no reason to change it. Directly before Maud's marriage, she was "of Wales". That is how she ought to be titled on Wikipedia. Charles 03:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The question above loads too many issues into one discussion, imo. Also, it is loaded in another sense: there seems to be an incorrect underlying assumption that some consorts need a title and others do not. That is simply not true. I predict that this discussion, mostly because of having too many elements and too many wrongly loaded assumptions from the beginning, will not lead to anything constructive. Well, I try to address those multiple concerns presented above:
In history books and in other encyclopedias, all wifes of dynasts tend to follow the naming convention here given for "royal consorts". (Royalist cruft material is another thing - there any royal usually is referred with a layer of titles, styles and honorifics. Things we usually regard as POV.) Wifes of junior members of royal dynasties are not basically any different from viewpoint of historians: Francis I of France's mother has been always referred to as Louise of Savoy, despite of the fact that she did not become a queen (queen consort or reigning) at any point of history. George III's mother, who neither became a queen, is usually referred to as Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Cicely Neville is referred to as such and not as any kind of "Princess Cicely Neville", although she was mother of Edward IV and Richard III, and wife of a royal duke. Blanche of Lancaster is that and not Princess Blanche of Lancaster. Joan of Kent is referred to as such and not as Princess Joan of Kent or as Joan, Countess of Kent, etc etc. It is simply not in accordance with academic standards to put pre-marital princess titulary in their names - as they in most cases are referred to in context of their marriages or widowhood.
Sibylla (not Sybilla, don't know who that is) of Saxe-Coburg was not a crown princess, she was wife of a prince who was heir-apparent of a then crown prince. However, in history books, Sibylla is generally referred to as Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, as we can see even in texts abounding around internet.
There is no principle difference between how history books and other encyclopedias name Maud of Wales and Margaret of Connaught - some books name them both as "of Great Britain" or something like that. Most usually, they are treted similarly, whatever is the treatment the academic referencer has adopted. I leave further discussion of British courtesy princesses to a separate thread, as it actually is not helpful for this issue, and however this issue does not depend on its decision.
This has gone to the level of instruction creepism. My opinion is that it goes simply too far to try imply or signal anything with elaborate choice whether to put princess or not before these names/ the subtlety is lost on most readers, and probably only those who anyway know who they were, understand that subtlety, whereby it actually is unnecessary. So, it is relatively funny how such a big duffy number is made of whether to put a title or not. Such distinction does not belong to an encyclopedia to decide upon - the discussion of which of her titles are to be mentioned and in what way, is dangerously close to decision-making of colleges of heralds and ceremony-masters in monarchical courts. This resembles a lot that sort of wrangling which takes place between persons who elaborate for external signs of their privileges, such as those of nobility who in past fought each other on who gets which seating place in a church and who is entitled to sit in presence of a royal prince/ss, who not. People with any sense would predictably ignore such "rules" here. Shilkanni 10:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I must concur: We should not attempt to invent a system; we should use what she is actually called in English. (In advance of the evidence, Margaret of Connaught is probably reasonable; short article titles are good things.) Septentrionalis 17:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not if they are inaccurate. Margaret of Connaught implies she was a queen consort. She wasn't. So under NC rules she goes in as Princess Margaret of Connaught. As for so-called instruction creepism that is nonsense. All encyclopaedias and sourcebooks develop their structures for name usage. WP is no different. If it didn't it would be the sort of amateurish mess that it was famously was on royalty until about 2 years ago when an attempt was made to co-ordinate name usage and end the farce of 17 (yes 17. I counted them) different formats being used, with the Prince of Wales in as Charles Windsor, the Queen of the United Kingdom referred to as Queen of England (a title not used officially since 1707), French monarchs in under 3 different formats, consorts in in different formats for each, etc. WP was regarded in that area as a complete joke. (It was mentioned in an academic conference I attended, with the royalty pages mentioned as examples of what happens when people who don't know what they are doing make up things.) What Shilkanni may think of as instruction creep is actually what other people regard as professionalism and co-ordination. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 18:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia should not invent a system for these crown princesses.. I predict that similar academics will regard this as a joke when they realize that an elaborate titling has been invented here, to include both "princess" and "historical name". Archives reveal that a person above was two years ago among those who also then were such who had to be convinced that academic world already has a usage of "historical name" (and consequently, Wikipedia gets laughed when contrary usages are in use). Afterwards, certain persons here have been repeating the doctrine of "historical name" (as soon as they finally comprehended it) and funnily enough, have tried to claim that their all attempts are in accordance with that system - now here you again see how well those have understood the academic usage. Perhaps it will take just some 17 months and as many versions, before those certain ones will be convinced that the academic usage should be followed. What a sad prospect of much much work - btw, Jtdirl, are you soon going to attend any conference where some knowledgeable academics would be present. Academics know that these women are generally under the historical names, similarly as are queens-consorts, and the specific rule here invented will create hilarity. "Margaret of Connaught" is accurate, contrary to allegations above. Shilkanni 18:43, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That implication exists only to those who trust in Wikipedia's naming system, which is broken. Margaret of Connaught no more implies a queen consort than Joan of Kent. I will agree that it is (given the choice) preferable to have people who do know what they are doing make something up; but it would be better still to report English usage. Septentrionalis 18:39, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. Early mediaeval naming used a form <name> <of somewhere> in the absence of surnames for a host of people; royalty, nobility, clergy, saints, theologians, etc whether real of mythical (eg, Robin of Sherwood for Robin Hood). Wikipedia uses those forms of names for early mediaeval personages. By Margaret's era that format was no longer used. In historiography it is generally used now to indicate consorts because it carries the standard format for monarchs (<name> of <country/place/title>) but uses maiden title rather than consort name because of the impractibility of using the latter given that consorts have no ordinal and so if using consort names would be indistinguishable from each other. It is used widely. Contrary to Shilkanni's claims (and his made up link to "instruction creepism") that format is widely used by biographers. Wikipedia based its rules on a thorough analysis of formats used, and after consulting with experts. Wikipedia faces a problem in so far as while most source books have limited numbers of individuals, we have the broadest range of any sourcebook ever published, reflecting multiple cultures, eras and formats. To establish a workable system experts were consulted. For British royal naming, for example, Buckingham Palace was approached for guidance and the naming formats used reflected their observations. Buckingham Palace and St. James's Palace gave the WP format thumbs up for accuracy, co-ordination and functionality. The Wp rules were debated extensively on talk pages and in thorough detail on the mailing list before being introduced and had an overwhelming consensus behind them. Putting someone in Margaret's era in a format used prior to her is factually incorrect and not an option. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 19:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Experts use the term Early medieval of things before 1000 CE (or the endpoint even earlier). Are you implying (putting your credibility on line) that Robin of Sherwood and Joan of Kent lived before 1000 CE ? Shilkanni 19:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have you run out of steam? Except for that, Jtdirl has many, many very valid things to say. Charles 19:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A thought here, which is that we've never had a clear rule for how to name royals who marry into another royal family, but do not themselves become queen or empress. This includes both those who never became consorts at all and those who became consorts to rulers with lesser titles, like Grand Duke or Duke or Prince. I think there tends to be a serious imbalance between how we treat British princesses who married continental royals and continental princesses who marry British royals. In the latter instance, there is clearly no uniformity even within that subcategory - the Prussian princess who married Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, is at Frederica Charlotte of Prussia; the Waldeck princess who married Leopold, Duke of Albany, is at Princess Helena, Duchess of Albany; the Prussian princess who married Arthur, Duke of Connaught is at Princess Louise Margaret, Duchess of Connaught; Victoria's mother is at Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; the wife of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge is at Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel. Clearly Victoria's daughters-in-law are listed in a completely different manner from George III's. Also note, George III's mother is not at Augusta, Princess of Wales (which oddly redirects to the article on George IV's daughter, who was not, of course, Princess of Wales), but at Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. This all ought to be made unitary. Either they are referred to by their husband's ducal title, or they are referred to by their maiden name. john k 19:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a particular view on crown princesses, but the wikipedia guidelines have never precluded exceptions. The main thing is to argue these out individually and achieve consensus. Deb 19:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that there's no reason for the inconsistency - why is Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel who became Duchess of Cambridge sufficiently distinct from Princess Helena of Waldeck-Pyrmont who became Duchess of Albany that their articles should be named in different ways? This is clearly something that should be in the naming conventions - do articles on dead foreign princesses who married British princes with peerage titles go at their maiden name, or at their husband's peerage title? There's no reason to treat this on a case by case basis. john k 19:41, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and perhaps my statement above is unclear. I just think that when there appears to be a reason for an exception, we should look at it carefully rather than trying to apply a blanket "rule". We developed these conventions to give guidance, not to beat people over the head with. Deb 22:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Logically, as there are potentially numerous other spouses of peers with the same title and name, they should all be in at maiden name & title. We do need to become less anglo-centric in naming. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 19:44, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's much more likely that there's multiple people known as "Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel" than that there's multiple people known as "Princess Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge." (I'm quite certain that there's only been one "Princess Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge", and only one "Princess Frederica, Duchess of York," for instance). I cannot, specifically, think of any examples of overlapping names of royal peers' wives, but perhaps you can provide some concrete examples. john k 20:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The principle is based not on specific examples in specific cases but on something that happens a lot, hence the creation of a generic format. It gets messy to have one set of rules with a PS: It doesn't apply to the Duchess of Cambridge line below it. If there are multiple Princess Augustas then we can work out a disambigulation format. Maybe we should devise a general format for disambigulating names where there are a number of people with the same maiden title. We could include the marital title in parenthesis, for example. It is rather important as Wikipedia grows that it does try to co-ordinate name usage and not have too many opt-outs. We would look amateurish, for example, if we listed US presidents under different formats, for example Washington, Abe Lincoln, President McKinney, FDR, Ronnie Reagan, George II of the United States, etc. Encyclopaedias need co-ordination through manual of style and naming conventions usage, not "we do this page this way, and that page in another way, and we'll make it up as we go along". Wikipedia already has had to untangle the mess of royal namings twice. We need to avoid having all the work of untangling things a third time by following a clear set of generic rules on naming, disambigulation, etc. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 22:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jtd - it seems to me that with royal peeresses, there are going to be very, very few repetitions, if any, while with German princesses, there's going to be a fair amount of repetition, even if we don't always have articles on the repeats. It would seem perfectly reasonable to me to put all the articles in their "Princess X, Duchess of X" format, and to have this as a standard. This would a) mesh with naming standards of non-royal peeresses, and b) would be perfectly consistent and unproblematic. And I really don't think there are any repetitions. Starting in the 18th century, when this becomes an issue, we have:

1. Augusta, Princess of Wales
2. Princess Frederica, Duchess of York
3. Princess Victoria, Duchess of Kent
4. Princess Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge
5. Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester
6. Princess Louise Margaret, Duchess of Connaught
7. Princess Helena, Duchess of Albany
8. Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent

That's pretty much it. I don't really see any especial problem with using this format for that small number of women. There might be a few Plantagenet cases that are more awkward, but the Plantagenet situation is more complicated, anyway. john k 12:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Your continuing argument that the way you'd prefer not to do it is "amateurish" remains unsupported by anything save assertion. That said, I don't especially care either way. I'd prefer it be made consistent either way to leaving it in the current mishmash form. john k 12:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Male consorts

Am I right in thinking that the lack of a prefix for royal consorts only applies to female ones? I stumbled across Prince George of Denmark and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and noticed they have now been moved, dropping the Prince. George and Albert were always referred to as Prince G/A when I was at school and Mary of Teck and Alexandra of Denmark as such, amongst others. Have the page moves been a bit overzealous, or was I mistaught? Craigy (talk) 17:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, in Canada, I always hear Albert referred to as Prince Albert or The Prince Consort. No one I've heard uses Saxe-Coburg and Gotha because they don't know how to say it. However, under the current rules, consorts are to be named a certain way and Albert and George are no less consorts than Mary of Modena, Alexandra of Denmark, et cetera. Charles 18:22, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, I changed this to have a heading. I hope you don't mind. Charles 18:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The consort rules were not originally made thinking about male consorts. The reason we don't use "Princess" with Alexandra and Mary is because they attained a higher title - "Queen." This is not true of Prince George or Prince Albert, who remained princes throughout their lives. Trying to apply this policy to male consorts is misguided. (It should be used, perhaps, with king consorts like Francisco d'Assis of Spain or Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg in Portugal, but certainly not with consorts who are not given the title of "king") john k 14:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The current convention reads as follows:

Deceased Royal Consorts are referred to by their pre-marital name or pre-marital title, not by their consort name, as without an ordinal (which they lack) it is difficult to distinguish various consorts; eg, as there have been many queen consorts called Catherine, use Catherine of Aragon not Queen Catherine.

Despite what many people seem to think (indeed, I only realised this myself today), there is nothing in that convention which advises against using the word "Princess" in the title, e.g. Frederika of Hanover instead of Princess Frederika of Hanover. Indeed the convention specifically refers to pre-marital title. The only reason, it seems, that a practice has developed of calling an unmarried princess, "Princess X of Y", and her sister married to a sovereign "X of Y", is that the example given is Catherine of Aragon. It makes no sense to me to have a convention distinguishing between an unmarried princess and her married sister - particularly one which forms the titles of consorts so that they appear to be sovereigns of their birth countries (i.e. the article title Frederika of Hanover makes her look just like the sovereigns of Hanover). I suggest that we alter the example of the convention to make it clear that the word "Princess" may be included in an article title for a consort (e.g. Princess Frederika of Hanover). I specifically say may, since I am not advocating the re-naming of hundreds of articles, especially in the case of somebody like Catherine of Aragon who is generally referred to as such without the word "Princess". Noel S McFerran 18:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be much more practical in general to go ahead and specifically state that Name of Place is the form for consorts and that the title should be omitted. Since that is how the convention is used for the most part, it is how it should remain. Charles 19:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised that the "champion of consistency" would advocate such inconsistency. Why should a princess who never married be called, for example, "Princess Anne of Amazia", but her sister who married a sovereign be called "Mary of Amazia"? It's particularly confusing if Amazia allows female sovereigns; Anne and Mary's mother the reigning queen of Amazia would be "Elizabeth of Amazia" (no different construction from her daughter). Can someone come up with a good reason for treating the unmarried and the married so differently? Noel S McFerran 22:49, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trust me when I say that not many people these days know of Alexandra of Denmark or Mary of Teck. Would any of those people think of Alexandra as the queen of Denmark? Maybe, maybe not. The name "Princess Anne of Amazia" makes it pretty clear that Anne was not a sovereign. "Mary of Amazia" invites the person to either be ignorant and decide on their own as to whether she was sovereign or not, or invites them to read the article and learn, as with any WP article. There is no need for the slight, hostile remark ("champion of consistency"). Charles 03:52, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is quite simple, Noel.

• Consort title can't be used because it lacks disambigulation features, notably an ordinal.
• To distinguish between people who were consorts, and those who were not, it is standard to mark the former by dropping the opening title. Hence, as has been mentioned, we say Mary of Teck not Princess Mary of Teck. The maiden title rule is applied generally in a way that allows the format used to indicate a consort of a monarch as opposed to a consort of someone else. Princess Mary of Amazia means someone who was not a consort, Mary of Amazia means someone who was. It is perfectly simple and perfectly consistent. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 14:19, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's not consistent; that's different. The convention is to treat a princess of country A who married a sovereign of country B EXACTLY the same as a sovereign of country A. If we actually did this, then that would be very confusing to ordinary people who haven't read the conventions. E.g. there was a lady who ruled Britain in the nineteenth century who has an article titled Victoria of the United Kingdom; her eldest daughter was married to the German Emperor - according to the convention for deceased royal consorts she should also have an article titled "Victoria of the United Kingdom" (we don't do this because it would be downright confusing). The same is true with Anne of Great Britain and the wife of William IV, Prince of Orange. If we actually did what the convention says to do, then it could be even more confusing with male consorts.

I know that the convention says to have an article title for the married wife of a sovereign without the word "princess", but to use the word "princess" in the article title for her sister. What I'm asking is WHY have a convention which says that.

If one wants to highlight the fact that the lady was a consort, then there are better ways to do this (e.g. article title saying "Queen of Amazia" or "Queen Consort of Amazia").

I'm not specifically suggesting any of these changes. What I would like to see is an open discussion of how well the convention is working.

The present convention works wonderfully for somebody like Catherine of Aragon. But how well is the general public currently served when they want to find an article on, for example, Queen Frederica of the Hellenes or Queen Ingrid of Denmark? Noel S McFerran 15:16, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the convention works fairly well. for the most part, people know tha sovereigns were male. For the females, these confusable individuals you speak of would simply have to read. If one wanted to look up Queen Frederica, one would most certainly know a little bit about her background (her father, her husband, etc) and find her from there or by one of the redirects. Charles 16:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• The convention works well for Catherine of Aragon, because that is usage. Septentrionalis 17:04, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• An encyclopedia is where people go to discover what they don't know, not to be confused or discouraged because they arrive without knowledge. This is like directing someone to look up a word in the dictionary to learn how to spell it! The Naming Convention directs us to subordinate correct titulature in favor of used titulature so as to maximize access to and uptake of Wiki's articles by unknowledgeable readers. It shouldn't be presumed that readers have any information about the subject they are looking up other than having stumbled across a name that gets them to a re-direct page -- and I'd rather they didn't Google on past Wiki because the article that pops up looks like it's not about the person they're trying to research. I do agree that once readers conclude that they are at the bio of the person they were seeking, the content of the article can and should be used to teach, among other things, proper titulature.
• The best reason I've heard for not using a title in article names for royal spouses is Shilkani's argument that it is implicitly POV because it legitimizes social hierarchy. Although I reject that reasoning for historical personages (because hereditary rank was deemed relevant in most societies prior to, say, World War I. Thus stripping it from Wiki articles is anachronistically egalitarian, and therefore POV), I prefer to avoid waving red flags in front of zealous egalitarian and anti-monarchist Wiki editors, and thus setting these articles up for future edit wars. Therefore I'd recommend conservative use of simplified versions of such titles in article names (e.g. "Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh" rather than "Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" and "Princess Maria of Bourbon-Sicily" rather than "Princess Maria of the Two Sicilies"). That said, I have heard no argument in this discussion that justifies Wiki preserving an inconsistency that is misleading and easily rectified (i.e. she is known, pre-maritally, as "Princess Alice of Battenberg" not "Alice of Battenberg". And I can personally attest to having searched in vain as a youngster among Germany's principalities to find the realm of Battenberg!). I'm not sure this is an alteration of the Naming Convention, so much as an addition thereto. Lethiere 18:30, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Background of historical naming: This comes from a long usage starting at least from Middle Ages. Usual works of history were so-called chronicles. They were usually written and used in approximately one country. And were almost epos of that country. They were not usually much used in other countries. Naming of persons had the perspective of the country in question.

Their princesses, duchesses and queens came almost always from something else than the ruler's seat of that country itself. They may have come from some foreign country. They may have come from the bunch of daughters of a vassal. Or they may have had a surname. The chronicle, usually narrating history about ten or twenty generations, and about many consorts in the same generation (wives of the monarch and wives of important vassals, dukes, counts etc, and there may have been two or three brothers each having a wife), liked to disambiguate these women. They realized the same thing as we here: using consort titles (within that one country), they get a bunch of Queens Marias, etc.

Those writers needed to use names that were respectful enough, and recognizable enough, but sufficiently disambiguate. A natural disambiguation was the name of the country a consort came from. They cannot have been discourteous: when they were not able to add "queen", "duchess" or whatever was the marital honorific, they left it totally away. It is some discourtesy and also misleading to give a honorific that was lower than the highest one the woman actually held.

If you look around at also older literature, all sorts of duchess-consorts and countess-consorts are there without title, just with "name ¨of + country". There are Isabellas of Portugal, some of them wives of dukes. There is Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I.

Middle Ages is not any exception to the historical naming of consorts, it is the source of it. Shilkanni 22:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, Polish monarchs do not need a special system. They are well enough to follow the general naming convention. Shilkanni 12:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Švitrigaila 15:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree too. All Polish monarchs should be moved/moved back to standard names, in "X N of Poland" format; contrary to the beliefs of some Polish contributors, Polish kings were not emperors of the universe, so there is no reason not to have "of country" in the title. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 15:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With regards to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Polish rulers), I'll summarize my POV. What I proposed at Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs/Archive_01#Proposal was: Polish first name, roman numeral if any, royal second name/nickname in English (if translatable at all, Poniatowski is not, being a normal surname). No 'of Poland' or 'King of Poland' needed unless there is a disambig issue. Why?

1) Polish first name beacause for vast majority of Polish kings there is no single most popular English name, there are several. This varies - sometimes there is ineeded one dominant (as is the case in Sigismund - this more of an exception to the rule. This was shown by an analyzis which I did a year ago and which led me to the formulation of this proposal. Here are some conclusions and links, based on three other popular first name for Polish kings: Talk:Bolesław I the Brave - Bolesław is about as popular as Boleslaus; Talk:Kazimierz I the Restorer - Kazimierz is more popular then Casimir; Talk:Władysław I Herman - Władysław is vastly more popular then the seemingly only used on Wiki Wladislaus. Note that in all of such cases we have about 10 choices for first name, with various combination of Englicized names based on Polish and Latin versions. Given the choice between a) using always Englicized names even if they are not the most popular 2) using a mix of English and Polishchosing always the most popular or 3) using the Polish name, which is alawys used by some historians (Norman Davies, God's Playground for a popular example) and which often is the most popular one in English publications anyway, giving us a consistent feel throughout the Polish monarchs (and consistency with Polish sources too) I have decided to chose Polish first name. As for the argument that Englicized names are easier to pronuce for English leadere, I somewhat doubht that Sigismund is that easier then Zygmunt, or Władysław is more difficult then Wladislaus. Finally I have found at least one academic piece which suggest such course of actions (using Polish first names for Polish rulers), while those who disagree with me have yet to present a single academic source advocating the use of Englicized first names.

2) Numeral. It seems to be used by approximately half the available sources. In addition it is very handy to readers giving them additional piece of information. And they are tiny. I see no reason not to use them, and several for.

3) royal second name/nickname in English. Those are usually short and distinctive, and are often used in the historical literature. For example, in the analysis of Bolesław I the Brave the usage of 'the Brave' beats hands down any and all alternatives (nothing, Chrobry, of Poland, etc.). Same with Herman. In case of Restorer there was a parity in English sources between Restorer and Polish Odnowiciel, but since this is English Wiki I decided to go with English translations as long as we are not dealing with real surnames (Leszczyński, Poniatowski, Wisniowiecki).

4) no 'of Poland'. First the 'of country' was introduced as a Wikipedia convention, any search will prove that it is a relatively rare addition in historical texts. It was introduced here beacuse of the needs for disambigs. The informative function of it is disputable, as in text it can be easily added when it is not clear from context what country is that monarch from, and when sb is reading the very article it is not really needed, as it can be mentioned in lead and expanded in text. For the same reason the country, state, and such names are used only in disambig forced cases with city names. However by using Polish first name, numeral and nickname we eliminate the need for 'of country' disambig. Still, I'd not oppose it strongly if not the two problems: lenght and correctness. First, 'of Poland' is not correct: many of those monarchs were also kings of Lithuania, and it can be argued it was at least as important as Poland. 'of country' becomes not very useful when you have two (or more!) countries (Władysław IV Waza could claim to be Władysław IV of Lithuania, Muscovy, Poland and Sweden. And to further complicate matters, 'of Poland-Lithuania is not as clear as 'of Austro-Hungary' (just follow the links). Władysław I of Poland-Lithuania was a king of a quite different entity then Władysław IV of Poland-Lithuania.

On those grounds I believe we need a special naming convention for Polish monarchs. They have been moved according to my proposal in Dec'05, before any major opposition to this move arose. I apologize for not consulting this with the community earier, but I was acting in good faith, and put the spirit of encyclopedia building over the letters of (this) law, which I felt and still feel was not appopriate for this case.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:45, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The "of Poland" formula is simply wikipedia convention. It is not there because of its popularity (as you have been trying to make out), but simply as standardization. All the reasons you've tried to find to justify subverting wiki convention are equally applicable to other monarchs, of other countries. I'd suggest if you don't like wiki convention in this case, go try and change that; there are simply no grounds for making Polish rulers exceptions. On the name front, I have more sympathy. Names of Polish monarchs should be decided on an individual basis; I strongly oppose anglicization for the sake of it; I think, for instance, the name Wladyslaw (i.e. not Władysław!) is preferrable to Vladislaus. But in terms of these monarchs, Sigismund and Casimir are quite clearly much more prevalent in English sources than Zygmunt and Kazimierz; what I really don't like is you, Piotrus, using the existence of more than one English form for a name as an excuse for absurd Polonizations like Władysław II Jagiełło for Jogaila/Wladyslaw VI. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 16:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:IAR. It is up to the community to decide whether to discard my arguments, apply them to Polish monarchs only or refeorm the entire NC for monarchs, the existence of this NM is no reason for denying the possibility of exceptions (and note that this very convention is an exception to WN for people). While Sigismund seems to be more popular then Zygmunt in English sources, the last time I checked for Casimir vs Kazimierz it was Kazimierz who won (see my link above). As for Władysław/Jogaila, the last RM preserved the current variant with 8:1 votes. It does appear that this 'absurd Polonization' proved quite popular...--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, Casimir certainly didn't win; your whole argument was rigged because you were finding every way you could to find an excuse to use the Polish name. As you know, Casimir is the standard English name, Kazimierz is only used in English when the writer is purposely introducing the Polish name. Google fights with forenames don't count, the individual monarchs are the ones who count. Just quickly, "Casimir the Great" has 825 hits on google books [10], "Kazimierz the great" has 37. Your assertion that Kazimierz is more popular is quite frankly a joke. I admire your commitment to the cause of Polonizing the English language, but to be honest, I don't see what you get out of it. Are you worried Polish monarchs might be thought of as Germans or something? - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 18:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I support moving all people to their appropriate English names. The English name of the current king of Spain is Juan Carlos and the English name of a certain famous Greek ruler of antiquity who lived before there was an English language or even widespread use of the Latin alphabet is Alexander the Great. Go figure. The Polish monarchs are best known by Anglicisations and should be titled in articles as such. These are convenient for two reasons: they are pronounceable to those unfamiliar with Polish (there are some of us) and they are more common in English literature, especially of the nonspecialist variety. Wikipedia, though it should be scholarly and factual, is nonspecialist. Srnec 18:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to clarify the above comment of mine. Even if modern popular histories are using Polish forms, that doesn't mean Wikipedia should. Older books may be outdated in many respects (or may not be), but in the choice of a nomenclature they are simply following the trend of the times, as are modern writers. I'll be damned if you can find many English refernces to "Władysław" before 1950. Why must Wikipedia become faddish? Finally, I notice that the Polish Wiki uses Polonisations for the monarchs of England. Who's "Ryszard Lwie Serce"?

As for the use of "of Poland": its a policy and a good one to prevent ambiguity. But, if it is impossible to apply (Poland or Lithuania or whatever), please find a happy middle ground for only those which do not fit conventions. Srnec 18:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Shilkanni that no special exception should be made for Polish monarchs. As for Piotrus' contention that he had consensus for the moves, that is incorrect, as can be seen at Talk:List of Polish monarchs/Archive 01. From my point of view, what it seemed was being done, was that a long list of extremely controversial moves were suggested by Piotrus on November 26, 2005, in the middle of the (American) holiday season [11] (meaning that it was likely that many editors were distracted with real-life, and weren't paying close attention to some of the pages). "Consensus" was then artificially constructed within a couple weeks because Piotrus advertised these moves to sympathetic voters (other Polish-speakers) via the Polish Wikipedian's Noticeboard, actions which he has been criticized for in the past, such as when he referred to POV disagreements on Poland-related articles as "vandalism". [12] He then conveniently ignored all objections as regards the Polish monarchs, such as those by JohnK, and rapidly proceeded with the moves in mid-December. Since then, each time one of the moves was challenged, he pointed back at his December "consensus" and tried to declare it a fait accompli. This is part of a history of trying to "conclude" discussions for which there is not yet consensus. [13] , as well as a pattern of providing heavily biased Google tests to try and back up his claims.

Further exacerbation of the problem occurred via a series of abusive actions on Piotrus' part, such as engaging in name-calling [14] and deceptive statements about anyone challenging his conclusions. He also frequently uses the Poland notice board to make "calls to action" to other Poles to engage in Talk page disputes or attack other Wikipedia users [15]. . One individual who raised questions about the Polish issue was accused by Piotrus of a "racist attack" [16]. Another clear example of hypocrisy is when Piotrus threw out an accusation and demand for an apology about any statements that "put in doubt the integrity of other editors" [17], and yet yesterday at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves he accused me of slander [18], and made a further unbased accusation that I was engaging in page moves without consensus, a charge that had been leveled by one of Piotrus' allies during the dispute at Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary, and which I had already addressed [19].

I have made multiple attempts to talk to Piotrus about my concerns [20]][21], but in most cases this has simply resulted in an exacerbation of the behavior, plus heavy sarcasm, ridicule, and further false accusations. In short, I do not believe that Piotrus' statements about any Poland-related "consensus" are to be trusted, and it may even be worth examining his fitness to maintain status as an admin. At a minimum, I would hope that the Wikipedia community could encourage him to stop engaging in controversial edits on Poland-related articles, as it would seem he may even be violating the spirit of WP:AUTO. --Elonka 19:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]