Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)/Archive 3

I would like to propose name convension about Japanese emperor. My new convention is simply:

{era name or given name} emperor

There is no ambiguous name basically so putting "of Japan" is redundant.
My world history book uses this notation, which seems conventional. Google attests too.
For example, because meiji is an era name not ruler name so it is sometimes misleading to say Emperor Meiji of Japan, which sounds Meiji is a name of ruler just like other monarcy in westerns.

Any objection? -- Taku 17:10 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

I'm afraid so.

I think we should follow the same basic structure for all monarchs. Allowing exceptions opens the doors to 'and what about . . . ' arguments which waste time and effort.
I think we should always put of of where even where as in this case given the name it might seem clearcut. There are wiki users who might think that some other state exists in that region that has an emperor and that maybe it might refer to it. (I know, but remember many Wiki users are unsure about basic facts and are using wiki to learn them. Even if 90% know it can only refer to Japan, I think we owe it to new people learning facts to make titles as clear and unambiguous from the start as it can be.
History books come from one culture, where everyone may have a basic level of knowledge or cop-on. But wiki has to deal with many culture where not everyone has the instinctive knowledge about some facts.

So I would strongly oppose dropping the words 'of Japan'. It makes things easier with them in and conforms to universal style, while removing them simply opens the prospect of confusing some people. I really don't see any point to dropping it. It isn't as if it is a large complicated title or anything. It is only two worlds. STÓD/ÉÍRE 01:06 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

Just to bring in another note. I would have *strong* objections to naming Chinese Emperors. Emperor X of China. Among other reasons, you end up with names that are simply incorrect. For example, Qing emperors are referred by their calendar names, and so Emperor Kanghsi of China is simply incorrect.

Second, you end up with needless political flames, which I've been trying to avoid. It is really brings up a whole can of worms about what the Kang-xi emperor, was emperor of.

In naming the emperors of China, we are currently using the standard forms that scholars of China (both Western and Chinese) use, and those standard forms exist for good reasons. There are already very strong conventions for naming Chinese emperors and those conventions take into account a huge number of issues which European monarchs do not have to worry about. For example, Chinese have a completely different way of resolving the situation of two emperors with the same name.

The conventions might be different from Western monarchs, but that is because Imperial China simply operated under a different cultural context. For one thing, Imperial Chinese political theory did not regard the emperor as head of the Chinese state but rather the leader of the world.

I suspect that the objections to Japanese emperors are similarly motivated. -- Roadrunner

convension might make a confusing because you have to know the convension emperor {ruler name} of {country}. If we started to use title for educational perpose, I am afraid we should put more info to the title, say pappus's law (mathmatics) not simply pappuss's law. or not algol but algol programming language and so on so on. I understand your concern but it is simply not the purpose of the title. -- Taku 01:42 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

In the area of monarchs it is. Monarchical nomenclature can be difficult to decipher so it is important to have as much clarity as possible, eg., British monarchs have reigned over different land masses, and unless you clarify, you end up with thinking Richard II had the same area of rule as Queen Victoria, who had the same area as Elizabeth II. I think in royal and imperial nomenclature you have to be much more specific. And it isn't as those being specific is complicated. Emperor of Japan seems perfectly straightforward, easy to type with absolute clarity. Where is the problem? STÓD/ÉÍRE 03:29 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Westerners couldn't be expected to know that Japan is the only country which has emperors with that particular name. Or am I misunderstanding the nature of the problem? Deb 17:26 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

Again, the title of an article shoud not be employed for educational purpose. The problem is simply the current usage is peculiar. We reached the convention that says putting of {country} because there is some conflict such as what you pointed out. But if not any, there is not reason to use that. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. The title should be used for teaching westerns but should be one that people least surpirse. Besides, there are already a handful of articles using different convention like emperors of Rome or those of China. I don't see any reason that only Emperor of Japan need to stick to western style. -- Taku 00:27 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

I don't understand (Yeah, I know big surprise). But the whole point of the specific naming convention for monarchs was to disambiguate between modern European rulers (which pretty much excludes any ruler that ruled before the Renaissance or whose kingdom was outside of Europe). It would be very silly to have the article on Pericles at Pericles of Athens. IMO the same holds true for Asian monarchs (there are exceptions such as Hirohito who is commonly called 'Emperor Hirohito of Japan by Westerners - but the extra words are not needed to disambiguate Hirohito from any other person or thing). --mav

I agree with Mav, and I have a more general concern that some experienced users are viewing naming conventions as rule set in stone, rather than helpful guidelines. Naming conventions shouldn't be that big a deal, for several reasons.

Firstly, it's easy to move articles if we decide they are misnamed, so users creating articles shouldn't have to worry too much if they are breaking a naming convention - it can always be moved later. And users certainly shouldn't have to feel that they need to carefully consult a rulebook before they create a new article. Back in the earlier days of the Wikipedia, we didn't have the move feature, so it was important to get article names right first time. That's not the case now.

Secondly, if conventions are kept short and simple - which I think they should be - they will not be able to anticipate every future naming issue that might come up. In some cases they might lead to article titles that seem odd, and out of line with common sense. Where a 'non standard' article title seems appropriate, contributors should feel free to depart from the convention and agree on an alternative title. Redirects can always be used so that links to the 'conventional' title still work.

Provided that article titles are sensible and unambiguous, we should be reasonably tolerant about naming. In particular, I've occasionally seen good, experienced contributors saying broadly 'you must do things this way, the convention says so, it cannot be broken'. That can be a bit intimidating to new users who are just trying to write articles, and it's not necessary. Enchanter 01:11 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

What Mav said. Tannin

A couple of points:

The vast majority of users to this version of Wiki use or understand english. They rely on it to convey accurate understandable information. If you are a 13 year old kid looking for a sourcebook on info for a school project, you won't have the instinctive knowledge much of us have, through life experiences, reading, other sources of knowledge. If that 13 year old is sent by his/her teacher to do a project on the 'Emperor of Japan', they won't necessarily know the names of emperors, nor will they necessarily know that no other similar state exists in the region with emperors with similar sounding names. It is much simpler in the english language version of wiki to follow the simple rule of where a monarch reigns over a modern state, name the state. That immediately lets them find the name of the person, the name of the country etc easily, something important if you are someone without the information looking for it, and at the same time not wanted to feel a complete idiot for going into the wrong page, or worse still misunderstanding something and taking it down, all because some wiki people who because of their background already know the facts, didn't think it relevant to put down something as basic as so and so is emperor of where.
Talk about 'oh we can always fix that if is wrong' is bunkum. With over 100,000 articles on line now, with stuff being changed all the time, vast amounts of rubbish are getting through because no one spotted it, or by the time someone who knows the facts comes on line, the change is way down the list of recent changes if not gone off it altogether. In the last few weeks, someone wrote that the Queen of England is queen of the Anglican church - luckily in an article I had on my watchlist, so I found it and axed that rubbish. No-one else spotted it. We all find mistakes but the larger wiki gets, the less able it is to be corrected simply by letting everything be written and hope it is found. This is particularly true with monarchical titles.
Monarchical titles are particularly troublesome and there rules aren't some optional extra. If you don't get them right, you create garbage. Yesterday, two guys tried to create a file on Otto of Bavaria. It should have been under Otto of Greece because Otto was king of Greece. It isn't a small point. There was a King Otto of Bavaria too. It took world war III to get the two guys naming the page to change the name, but if they hadn't, any schoolkid relying on wiki for the name of the first king of Greece wouldn't have found him (or if s/he had, would have been completely confused at ending up in Bavaria!) while the redirect that had been set someone looking for the real Otto of Bavaria to the pages on Kings of Greece. You try telling that kid who has made a muck of his school project that it was screwed up because we led a basic error slip through. Like we had pages and pages and pages that gave the British royals the wrong surname, until I checked with Buckingham Palace, changed all the pages and then fought edit wars with people who kept trying to do more ones or revert the originals to the wrong version. 'Reasonably tolerant' gave us the wrong names of various English/GB/UK monarchs, surnames of royals, names of authors, even Ireland. Australia was turned into a republic, Italy had a king Victor Emmanuel IV. Without being strict on naming, how to you expect wiki to tell the different between the Earl of Longford (theatre director) and the Earl of Longford (author and politician)? That John Russell actually is Lord John Russell, the British Prime Minister, that you are reading about Garret FitzGerald, the former Irish prime minister, not Garret Fitzgerald (alias Gearóid Óg Fitzgerald) who lived five hundred years earlier. Or that 'Victor Emmanuel IV' isn't the name of the king of Italy, it is the name of the pretender to the defunct throne of Italy, and he should be in as Victor Emmanuel, Prince of Naples. And that Prince Charles is not Charles Windsor - that is not his surname, it is a tabloidised myth. And his son Harry is most definitely not Harry Windsor.

Until Deb, and few others and I sorted out the fiasco that was royal naming on wiki, there were 9 different naming versions being used, 7 of which were so wrong they would be laughed at if anyone wrote them down in an exam! If naming conventions on this and other pages are just optional extras, the wiki will earn itself the reputation of a dodgy sourcebook not worth trusting, and that is not what we are trying to achieve here. So I am completely opposed to not using the name of the state in the title of a monarch. It may not be what the monarch is known as there, but to a worldwide audience, that sort of information is necessary. I for one don't want to responsible for screwing up some 13 year old kid's school project because I didn't it worth my while typing two words onto someone's name so that that kid and others like him can find the information he or she needs easily, without causing confusion and mixing him up. We are compiling an encyclopædia here, folks, not playing at compiling an encyclopædia. STÓD/ÉÍRE 02:22 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Errr ... JTD, an interesting read with some wonderful rhetoric aside, you haven't actually added anything with that long post. Sure, if there is risk of ambiguity, we need to specify extra detail. No-one is arguing with that. But the risk of ambiguity in the case of Emperor Akihito (for example) is zero. I think it's crazy to carry the urge for consistency to the extreme of listing someone who is universally known by one name/title and cannot possibly be mistaken for anyone else under a different, non-obvious heading. If we start down that road, we will soon be forced into the ridiculous position of calling Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon, Jesus will become Joshua of Galilee, Nero becomes Lucius Domitius Claudius Nero Caesar of Rome. And so on. Sometime we just have to inject a little common sense. This is one of them. Tannin

But your examples are all of Modern European monarchs where there is a great deal of ambiguity in naming. Other parts of the world and other time periods don't have such a large ambiguity problem with naming in order to require pre-emptive disambiguation. US states do have major ambiguity problems so they are pre-emptively disambiguated but most other nations' cities are not subject to preemptive disambiguation because a much higher proporation of those city names are unique. As I said above it would be insane to have the article on Pericles at Pericles of Athens. It would also not be necessary to have Julius Caesar at Julius Caesar of the Roman Empire, Montezuma II at Montezuma II of the Aztecs, Tutankhamun at Tutankhamun of Egypt etc. Nobody refers to these rulers this way and it is plain wrong to try and force a modern Eurocentric naming convention on ancient rulers and rulers of non-European kingdoms. BTW pre-emptive disambiguation is the exception, not the rule around here. And your kid on a school project would simply use one of our many monarch lists to find what he needs. --mav

Actually I have little to say because my point is apparent. The problem is why only Japanese emperors need to conform the convention for the name of western rulers. If you like to think of example, imagine a boy who grew up in Africa. He probably speaks English well but knows little about American history. For educational purpose, we should name John F Kennedy of the United States. Sometimes a silly title is necessary but this is not the case. It seems to me that current applying western monarch convention to the name of Japanese emperor is rather a mistake. The basic principle of naming convention is use the most common name and the current title of Japanese emperors conflicts with it. For curiocity, do you want to advocate we should start this new convention? -- Taku 02:59 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

What Taku said! I see no Hitler of Germany or George Washington of USA at wikipedia. Shall we go change every US president now? Why is Japan being singled out for odd conventions? Arthur 03:31 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Japanese emperors are not being singled out. Every Western ruler follows the convention we are trying to get the Japanese emperors to follow. - Zoe

But *Chinese emperors* do not use the Western monarchial conventions and I would strongly object if they were. The name Emperor Kangxi of China is simply incorrect, because the Emperor wasn't named Kangxi (Kangxi was the name of the calendar period in which the emperor ruled and people use it because his Imperial name was used by other Emperors), and you can get into all sorts of political flames about whether he was "of China". There is a standard scholarly naming convention for Western monarchs. There is a standard scholarly naming convention for Chinese monarchs, and I suspect that there is a standard scholarly naming convention for Japanese monarches. There is no reason why one naming convention should apply to the others. -- Roadrunner

Hi, Zoe!

glad to encounter you again. I consider you a friend.

Have you read the debate about naming japanese emperors? Taku wants to stop the convention of saying XXXXX of Japan, in part because we say that about no one else. I checked very carefully to see if there was an article about Adolph Hitler of Germany. There is none. And I checked very carefully to see if there was an article about George Washington of USA. There is none. Why Emperor Taisho of Japan, then? Taku merely requests permission to make all consistent. I think we should gratefully grant it to him. Arthur 03:48 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

What about Edward I of England, Edward II of England, Edward III of England, etc.? You keep saying nobody else does it that way, and you keep getting it wrong. -- Zoe

How does it conflict with it? It is all very well saying Emperor Akihito, but emperor of where? I know where he is from. I met the guy. (nice man. very small, though. I thought I was small!) But how many people automatically know who he is? Most people I know wouldn't. As to the JFK bit, that is quite frankly ludicrous. If we are referring to a head of state as head of state, people qualify it in formal reference books. So people when referring to Kennedy qualify it by US President. But republican heads of state are fundamentally different. They may be head of state for 4, 5, 7 14 years, but they have a career before and after. Royals grow up as royals, like their life before the throne as heir and the rest of their life as monarch. So a monarch's article is much much more defined by their title and country than a republican head of state who is head of state for a small small proportion of their lives. Kennedy was a congressman, a senator, president, author, etc. So you cannot call a page on him simply 'President of the United States' because he was more than that. But Akihoto has lived his entire life associated with the throne, so the option of divorcing him from it and talking about his years as a businessman, politician, writer, etc isn't there. That's why naming conventions here and everywhere else distinguish between republican heads of state and royals in how they refer to them.

I can't comment in the case of Japan, but in China it was not uncommon for an Emperor to be deposed, and unlike the European case, a deposed Emperor was basically a commoner. There are some basic and fundamental differences between the political context of Japanese emperors, Chinese emperors, and European monarches, and these differences are in part reflected in naming conventions. *Not* making those differences apperant risks people taking their knowledge of how things worked in Europe and applying them to situations where things worked very differently. -- Roadrunner

Re Mav and Tannin - I think a perfectly simple rule to follow is where there is a clearly identificable state, why not state it. In ancient monarchies that does not arise and no one with any sense would suggest it - states were not states in the modern sense, they were territories over which a monarch established control. In most cases, the ancient monarchs cannot be even identified with one country, because the lands the controlled are far greater or far less than any modern state.

This runs into huge problems with Chinese imperial theory in which the Emperor of China was the leader of the entire civilized world and *not* merely the head of state of a defined nation-state. Naming Emperor X of China is like naming someone Pope X of the Vatican. I suspect that you will also run into problems with Japanese imperial theory.

So absolutely no-one is talking about defining them by the modern concept of statehood. But Akihito reigns over a modern state, clearly and unambiguously defined. I just don't see what is the problem. You know who he is, I know who he is, but do you honestly suggest that everyone knows who he is? A US poll some years found that 18% could not name the President of the United States and that was 'Zipper Clinton' (Met him too. His wife had 'very' cold hands! God I love my job!). According to a poll 10% in Ireland couldn't name the Irish Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) even though she is on TV every second day, is notoriously fat and her poster was on every lamppost during last year's general election. Do you honestly think everyone on wiki knows who Akihito is, let alone where he is emperor of? If you walked out on the street and mentioned 'King Louis', do you thing everyone would think of France? Most would. Some would think of Louis Armstrong. Some wouldn't have a goddamned clue. (And not just Jerry Springer viewers!) I was once told by a guy who worked on the Encyclopædia Brittanica, 'never underestimate the lack of knowledge of the reader. And always give as much factual information in the title as you can'. Then I was just drafting Irish information for Irish readers. Here you have worldwide readers, with varying standards of english, varying knowledge of the world, of varying age-groups, and you are presuming that of course they will recognise Akihito. I guarantee many wouldn't. Which is why I believe you need to say where he is emperor of. It won't hurt 90% who recognise him. But it just might help the 10% who would not have a clue, unless we put it in the title. STÓD/ÉÍRE 03:54 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Needless to say, you have been missing the point. We are not talking about if people know who he is. Could you remeber I said the title in wikipedia is merely a label to identify it from other things. Dogen Zenji is named because it clearly distinguish it from others. I bet most of people know nothing about him, thus if we apply your new convention, we should name him like Founder of Soto, Dogen Zenji of Japan or something like that. If you want to introduce this new convention to here sure we can debate but I am afraid it is certainly beyond the scope of debate about the name of Japanese emperors. I know nothing about the majority of titles in wikipedia. -- Taku 04:27 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Taku, Arthur please stop talking about the new convention or Japan being singled out. There is no new convention, no change whatsoever. The convention remains * In East Asain names, look at common English usage to decide whether the western first-name last-name or the eastern last-name first-name order should be used. As a rule of thumb, Japanese names should usually be given in the western, Chinese names in the eastern order. A redirect from whatever order is not used, is almost always a good idea. (NON ROYAL NAMES. Paragraph 5).

All that is being asked is that, for the benefit of people worldwide who use wiki, a monarch's state be named; where as we have here, monarchs have different titles depending on which language is used, resdirect pages can be used to ensure that both Japanese speakers and others can each in their own way get to the monarch's page. And please stop telling me how of course they will know. Some americans don't know who George Bush is. Some irish people don't know who Mary Harney. You can be 100% certain that there are vast numbers who will not have the foggiest who Akihito is. That is no disrespect to him. It is simply a fact. Stating what state he reigns over makes it easier for those who are confused to recognise him. Not naming his country can confuse people. It is a simple, basic, elementary rule that worldwide is followed in most worldwide sourcebooks. It is also part of our current naming conventions to deal with the very issue of removing as much confusion as possible.

But naming people can give people the false impression that they understand something that they don't.

STÓD/ÉÍRE 05:00 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

PS - Zoe as so often is right! Hey Zoe! Go girl!

Sure I know who King Louis is. Most famous boxer of all time. Right up there with Cassius Ali.

err ... sorry about that. If we are serious about making article names recognisable, then we need to include the ruler's title. Ask the average person these three questions:

Who is Hirohito? Ans: "beats me"
Who is Hirohito of Japan? Ans: "Some Japanese guy? No wait, I think they make cars and things."
Who is Emperor Hirohito? Ans: "Ruler of Japan, wasn't he?"

Tannin 04:15 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Personally I've always been in favour of that. But at the very least, in the case of monarchs, contextualise them in the modern context by naming their state. And apply it universally to all modern monarchs anywhere on the planet. (Don't DARE mention si-fi series with inter-gallactic monarchs!!! :) ) If they rule or reign over a clearly definable state, name it. It makes everything much much more straight-forward. STÓD/ÉÍRE 04:23 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Re STÓD/ÉÍRE: Oh. Where's Emerson when you need him? And where's his opposite? Tannin's common sense (see above) has given way to half-hearted (inconsistent?) but militant demands for consistency. Let's change to George Washington of US for consistency? Let's add the country when we know it? Buddha of India? To the article, perhaps, but to the title? A search of Emperor of Japan (or any rough equivalent) immediately returns "Taisho". A search of President of the United States of America gives us Washington. So why the funny article names? William Shakespeare of England is not an article title. And it never will be! And no amount of name dropping will change that. (I've met three presidents and two emperors [one was an avid oceanographer and used to visit us in La Jolla]. So what?) Arthur 04:35 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Read the naming conventions, Arthur. It is perfectly logical if you follow them. That is why they are there. STÓD/ÉÍRE 05:02 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

What about contested emperors? I see no reason to mention the nationality within the title. In fact, I see no reason to mention the title within the title. It should merely state the person's name. Susan Mason

Heh heh. And Susan does her usual 'lets see what trouble we can stir up here too' act! Have you finished trying to page all the names of all the pages on US elections yet, because you don't like the comma? Or re-arranged all the names in all the lists? Susan, under your various banned personages, you have been here months and months and months. Don't you think it is time you actually read some of the pages, things like naming conventions? They would explain how you use names. Or would that spoil your game? STÓD/ÉÍRE 05:00 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)