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In such cases we have to figure out the WP:PRIMARYMEANING. Of persons listed, I would say Michael is most commonly looked for. A good indicator is the number of wikipedia pages that link to a particular person. Here Michael beats all by a wide margin. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:16, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
I'd say to create a surname page at Apted: only a few exceptional people are the target of a redirect from their surname if it is shared with other people. As soon as there are two or more people I'd create a surname page to overwrite the redirect to the single name-holder. PamD18:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Policy say: frequently referred to simply by the single name - a matter of judgement. Surely I see Apted as Apted frequently. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
"The page could not be moved, for the following reason: The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid. Please choose another name, or use Requested moves to ask for the page to be moved. Do not manually move the article by copying and pasting it; the page history must be moved along with the article text."Zigzig20s (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
The page history is to be preserved for copyright reasons, which IMO in your case is ignorable, because you are the only author and may do whatever you want with your contribution, including request for deletion by {{db_author}} . But if you want to be 100% formal, use {{rename}} template in article talk page per WP:REQMOVE instructions. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:49, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
I think what we have now is fine. I am not convinced that Michael isn't primary. But feel free to move it if you want.Zigzig20s (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Orphan tag
Latest comment: 4 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Many times in English texts the diacritics are not written (you can easily see this in google search). Therefore we often create an article without diacritics Gamiz and redirect various diacritics versions into it. Of course, if there is only one version of diactitics exists, such as Krušec, then we use it as the article title. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:11, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
The words are definitely pronounced differently, so in Spanish they must be different surnames. But whether they are variants of the same surname or have the same origin like Smith and Smythe, I do not know. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:22, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Can never go wrong with vetting it out. That said, I typically just concentrate on creating the initial lists, and leave it to others to improve by separating or combining later based on origin, if needed. In this case, since there are not that many, I'd be inclined to combine them all at Gamiz.—Bagumba (talk) 01:40, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
If there were separate entries differing by diacritics, either hatnotes or disambiguation pages should ensure that readers not using diacritics can get to the article they are interested in.—Bagumba (talk) 01:40, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
If there were sevaral versions with 2-3 items, my choice would be to put into a single page, rather than making the searcher to jump through several hoops. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:27, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 years ago14 comments2 people in discussion
Some time ago I've seen a big amount of cleanup in surname pages removing sources considered non-reliable, such as babynames.com. Does anybody remember a discussion in this respect?
In particular, I am concerned with forebears.io (I see it used in Lal), as well as other websites, such as familysearch.org, genealogybank.com, etc. Staszek Lem (talk)
I cite the Dictionary of American Family Names whenever I can. I think we should just remove unreliable sources, or categories without sources (even when it seems obvious--I still think we should have a reliable source first).Zigzig20s (talk) 18:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
That was my question: which sources are unreliable. I would not hesitate to delink forebears.io, but I am afraid getting into edit war. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
If in doubt, the source is probably not reliable. Better not fall for it. I note that there is no Wikipedia article about forebears.io. Who is behind the website?Zigzig20s (talk) 18:47, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
our article says it allows user-generated content, hence by our rules it is not reliable sources. Of course, if someone cites a reliable source, you may use it, but better double-check the source yourself. I often find good sources at message boards and chats. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
from our article about FamilySearch: The Family Tree section allows user-generated content to be contributed to the genealogical database.Staszek Lem (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, sorry, I thought you meant we don't allow user-generated content (which is true). My point is that Mormons take their genealogical work seriously, so it is not as unreliable as other websites. But obviously we would still need to find reliable sources (which they may cite). In general, I think books published by reputable publishers are the best option.Zigzig20s (talk) 18:58, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
No. Ancestry.com cites dictionary, so this is reliable source. The text is formally correct, but it is a very sloppy relelling of what the source says and must be rewritten closer to the dictionary cited. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:50, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Failed G14 attempt
Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
There's no need to have three pages when one works fine. The names aren't obviously different nor is the page unwieldy. --Tavix(talk)19:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Unless you've got sourced information to add about the names, I'd just leave it at the simple dab pages as at present. The reader won't benefit from having to go to look at another page. PamD18:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, don't split it. If there's no encyclopedic content, the page serves only a disambiguation purpose: with so few entries it's easier to navigate when they're on the same page. An additional, and in this case crucial consideration is that you shouldn't create articles about a topic unless you've got reliable sources at least confirming the existence of the topic. As far as I can see there's only one person listed with the surname "Rosli": all the other people whose name ends in "Rosli" are Malaysian, and in Malaysian personal naming conventions, surnames don't normally exist. – Uanfala (talk)18:20, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I think we should cover them on the same page. That's how Patrick Hanks handled "von" in general in The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Great Britain and Ireland. See e.g the entry for Cornberg [1]. What do others think?59.149.124.29 (talk) 08:20, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Fictional characters
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, I started a conversation on the Standards talk page and was advised to cross-post here to potentially elicit more traction. I'm looking for a bright line ruling on when non-bluelink fictional characters should be added to a list of names article, as I've seen growing tendencies for dedicated fans to list every single character and every one of their names on anthroponym articles, resulting in hundreds of crufty entries at a time. JesseRafe (talk) 13:22, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
Sidebar - Assessments section, updated
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
for example, because if "John Doe" is a wannabe author and he's seeking a name for his main character, looking on wikipedia he can believe it's possible there is an Atenulf Cuomo in Benevento. If he call the hero with this name, everybody here in Italy laughs. --2.226.12.134 (talk) 11:18, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
imho here we must insert only italian names we use in XXI century, otherwise wikipedia includes names we used last time 900 years ago.. another problem with Atenulf is in italian the name for Atenulf of Benevento is Atenolfo ;).. --2.226.12.134 (talk) 11:40, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means :)): if you don't find on italian wikipedia or a facebook there is a living Atenolfo maybe it's better the name is not in that category ;).. then in italian the name isn't Atenul but Atenolfo and last person with that name lived 900 years ago.. 2.226.12.134 (talk) 12:58, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
This is not a problem of wikipedia that an idiot picks a weird name for a nationality he is not familiar with. We've seen this in zillions of books and hollywood blockbusters. The real problem is that many articles, such as Atenulf, are unreferenced, and hence difficult to caterogize correctly. We could, for example, introduce the category:Obsolete Italian given names. But in order to place the names in this category we must have a reliable source that says so. As for your suggestion about XXIst century, it is unusable, because then we will have categories for XX, XIX, VIV century names (because encyclopedias are not only about today), which is an obvious nonsense: something like category:Given names used in 18th century is of questionable utility. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:26, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
of course it's not our problem what people do but we must be careful when we write something: Atenolfo (not Atenuulf) was a name used in XI century, not now. In that age here in Italy nobody used anglicized names (it was a mirachle if we used the same language ;)..) so it's like saying "Ivan and Giovanni are english names": no, Ivan is russian and Giovanni is italian. 2.226.12.134 (talk) 11:55, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
I added the clarification to this end into article. The category is still valid, because it lists native Italian spellings, which are redirected to this page. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:21, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
guys, the problem is not only Atenulf, there are other names we dont' use.. italian names are Michele, Giovanni and so on, not Michael, John or Pandolfo, Galleria and so on.. 2.226.12.134 (talk) 11:54, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I have proposed a tag for articles that refer to a person by two or more names and it is not clear which is the surname that should be used throughout the article per WP:LASTNAME. I know that editing general biography articles is outside the scope of this project, but it seems like the best place to ask for comments on the value of this. See Template talk:Family name hatnote. Thanks MB23:54, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
Footers for a surname list
Latest comment: 3 years ago17 comments4 people in discussion
What footers should a simple little page like Méresse have? A full surname page would have a lot of sourced content about the etymology and distribution of the name, of course, but there are many many of these useful surname lists which are similar to, though not the same as, disambiguation pages. Does it need both a "surname" footer and a "surname stub" one (which looks terribly clunky)? If not, which, and how can I avoid it getting given the other? Any thoughts? PamD09:08, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
Someone over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation alerted me to Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy/Standards. I see there that the example it gives of a surname stub at WP:APOSTUB does not include the {{Surname}} template - thus depriving readers of the useful information it contains, which is just as relevant for a stub article. I wonder whether there is a case for creating a different kind of template for {{surname-stub}}, which would be in effect a combination of those two templates, so that we can give all the information to readers in one elegant template rather than cluttering the article with two? PamD17:41, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
I do not think one needs a stub template for surnames. For very few of zillions surname pages there is have enough information to be expanded. All expandable ones already have most of what can be found.
In fact, I think the whole idea of "stub" templates is outdated. They were necessary in early days of wikipedia, when people were not well aware the "wikipedia is an encyclopedia which everyone can edit" and we needed various extra encouragement to attract editors. There are zillions of stub-tagged articles which set there for 10 years and nobody cares. If there is a two-liner article and nobody cares to expand it, then "stub" template will not help. It is just an annoying litter in the page and a clickbait for powertool-assisted editcountitis-suffering wikignomes, who, as I often see, plop various templates everywhere without a second's thought. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Hello @PamD:. I think either, but not both, {{surname-stub}}or{{surname}} are required, but @Staszek Lem: is right, there are very many surname pages that have scant information about the surname but that use {{surname}} instead of {{surname-stub}}. And I agree that in any case {{surname}} is better. So, here's an idea:
I'll try that, and see how long it is before someone comes along and slaps a {{stub}} tag onto a little surname page. I create them quite often, when someone I'm stubsorting or otherwise working on has a surname which hasn't yet got a page, but there are other people sharing the surname so that a redirect isn't appropriate. PamD19:44, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
See, for example, this edit: {{stub}} added with comment "(stubby; the article is short; the navigation banner is bigger than the article)". Found it while stub-sorting. Do I revert, or stub-sort? Revert would be sensible and probably as per consensus above; stub-sort would be according to the published instruction. PamD06:54, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
I imagine that stub categories in general were created so that anyone on a campaign to expand a particular subcategory of stubs could easily find those pages. I don't mind categorizing them, and have been doing so, but I otherwise don't "use" those categories, per se. If they are not deemed useful, they should just be TfDed instead of redirecting them from a misleading "stub" name.—Bagumba (talk) 10:18, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
It's not quite as simple as saying "TfD the {{surname-stub}}": there would need to be a case made, and agreement reached, that surname articles are different from other articles, given that a small surname list with minimal info about the surname itself is definitely a stub, by normal definitions. PamD15:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
My point is that the only full-proof way to make sure the name stub templates are not used is to TfD them and establish consensus. However, what would stop anyone from placing generic {{stub}} instead?—Bagumba (talk) 16:45, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
(1) Normally it is an extremely rare case someone links a surname bearing in mind that they indeed want to discuss the surname. The latter usualy happens in the anthroponymy-related articles. But in most cases IMO it may happen when someone links it without much thinking, such as in "Sergeant McMahon", because even the sources cited do not know and don't care who the heck this sergeant was. And I do not think the readers care about this sergeant either. Therefore this link will probably stay, like, forever, because
unlike disambig pages, the link is a normal blue one
when someone clicks on it, they will see a normal article and the {{surname}} with the advice to disambiguate is way down below the page and random people either will not see it or just ignore it: if they read to the very bottom, it means they were absorbed with the interesting reading and hence most probably will care less with formalities.
(2) There is a relative small proportion of the articles like McMahon. A vast majority are like Smythe.
(3) WP:APONAME-LIST gives a clueless example: IMO Spencer (surname)does not need the advice "If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page,...". Because if a person, who gives himself a trouble to type "Spencer (surname)" most probably they knew what they were doing, unlike, say, the link in "sergeant McMahon".
(4) An extra layer of complication (or simplification :-) is that Spencer, Smith, etc. are in fact disambiguation pages, which lends a natural usage of surname articles with disambiguated titles, like, Smith (surname).
Do not convert surname articles which are just lists, possibly with a brief header on etymology, such as MazheikaorPaszkiewicz. Brief headers (even not so brief) in lists is a common practice.
Modify the ledes of Mazheika-type articles to tell that is a list article without renaming the page. Eg. the phrase "Notable people with this surname include" relpace with "A list of notable people with this surname include", as in List of people with surname Smith.
Modify the text of "surname-stub" template and of its instruction to clearly indicate that it is intended only for XX (surname) pages.
The the guideline state that the "list-only" surname pages should not bear any "stub" tags, because they are basically navigation pages, unless there is a potential of the expansion of the lede beyond etymology. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:44, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
I honestly don't think there are any improvements here, and the introduction of a third template would mean there would be two more than we really need. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 07:15, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Planning for upcoming large RfC on surname clarification
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 3 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Can someone restore the etymology of Maiorana to the page and move the notable named Maiorano to that page instead please? Linking to it through the See also section, as it infers here that its only "possibly a variant of MAIORANA, but more likely a habitational name from Maiorano di Monte, a locality of Dragoni in Caserta province". Regards, 2A02:C7F:3846:4500:5577:29A0:A9C8:1D41 (talk) 22:47, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
I reverted the edit by an IP with edit summary "rm trivia" and edited the page ta bit. Although I doubt that reference to Italian Yellow Pages is a valid ref. Staszek Lem (talk) 07:35, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, I agree about the Yellow Pages ref, and also that the distribution section for the name is unneeded. Could you move the notable named Maiorano to that page instead please? The pages can still be linked but the Hanks source suggests its a seperate name and meaning just similar etymology. 2A02:C7F:3846:4500:6434:2AE0:2CB9:89C0 (talk) 00:13, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
Notable people
Latest comment: 3 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
No such general rule. Usually the {{interlanguage link}} template may be used to link to the French article. There is a major caution, though: the person must satisfy the notability rules of english wikipedia: WP:NBIO. Other conventions also apply. In the case of dispute, please ask a specific question. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:24, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
Have separate name pages for every different etymology of a name, e.g. one for each Chinese character, one for a Laotian name, etc., and then list people at each page regardless of how their name is romanised (and then use the disambiguation page for the "remainders" who who don't fit onto any of those pages)
Have one page for each Latin-alphabet spelling, which lists all possible origins of that spelling, and every person whose WP:COMMONNAME matches that exact string of Latin letters (regardless of how it's originally written in some other script)
Latest comment: 3 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
This issue is probably covered somewhere but I cannot find it, I wanted to understand why it is written John Hasbrouck Van Vleck with uppercase V in "Van" and not van Vleck. It is lowercase for other names e.g. Pieter van der Werff. External sources do not help either, for example the Nobel Foundation uses van Vleck but in most other places it is Van, also he is not Dutch. What is the convention for these kind of names?--ReyHahn (talk) 12:12, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, Please note that Name, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBottalk00:05, 22 March 2021 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team
"List of people" naming convention
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I created the page Margevicius but was unaware of the existing page Markevičius. A couple of questions.
Are these forms of the same surname or considered distinct? (i.e. should they be merged?)
Both pages list surnames with diacritic and non-diacritic forms of the respective surnames. If they are distinct, should one of the pages be moved so that they are consistent (either both pages named with diacritics or both without)?
Grateful for any help on this. --11:43, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Margis is a well-known Lithuanian given name (diminutive of Margiris) from which Margevičius is a valid derivation (son of Margis). Russian form: Margevich, Latvian form Margevics, Polish: Margiewicz/Margewicz.
Also Tamils, among others; see Indian name#Tamil. Surnames are a relatively modern invention, and many cultures have done perfectly well without them (including the Irish, Scots and Welsh, until the English insisted that they adopt the then-novel English style).
Sometime after 9/11, I remember a report (CIA?) something like "Ali bin Mohammed AKA Ali abd Daoud" as if that was something devious if not nefarious. It wasn't. In different contexts, under Arabic naming conventions the same man might be called "Ali son of Mohammed" or "Ali father of Daoud". Narky Blert (talk) 18:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
Help needed
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, I'm trying to organize the listings of three names, which might or might not be related, to the appropriate name or DAB pages. I'd be grateful for your help and contribution, here is the discussion so far for background. Thank you 94.15.165.206 (talk) 00:10, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
German names
Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
New User Question About Repeat Use of Chinese Names
Latest comment: 2 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
So I ended up here and I hope this is the right direction. I'm American and I've been reading articles on Wikipedia about Chinese historical figures for years. The one thing that keeps driving me crazy, the thing that motivated me to make an account, is how the articles repeat names generally. Here's an example: [[2]]
In the middle of this article there is a sentence that begins "Han borrowed Shang Yang's emphasis on laws" , it's about the person Han Fei but it can be confusing because Han also refers to the state he is from and his family. This may not seem confusing to all, but there are definitely instances in other articles where it becomes extremely hard to follow the names and cities and groups and styles and so on.
So my two suggestions would be either just always write out the whole name, so it would read "Han Fei borrowed Shang Yang's emphasis on laws"
or to use the East Asian style given name first and say "Fei borrowed Shang Yang's emphasis on laws"
I didn't see anything here [[3]] about subsequent use. I did however find here [[4]] in the section about culture specific use "In Vietnamese names, given names also take priority over family names. The given name, not the surname, should be used to refer to the person. The given name is nevertheless placed after the family name, following the East Asian naming scheme, even when written about in English." I would think this would apply to Chinese names as well. Thoughts? Has this already been discussed? HanFeiZiFuRen (talk) 19:38, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
This issue must be raised somewhere in the guildelines WP:Manual of style. I will try to find an appropriane place (you may search these pages yourself as well). Meanwhile please fix the articles yourself by putting full names. They are not that long. I had similar issues with Korean names: "Mr.Kim" ??? - a quarter of Korea are "Mr. Kims". Lembit Staan (talk) 21:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
I think it depends on context. If a different "Han" is referred to, use "Han Fei" in the next reference to the person. Revert back to "Han" thereafter. If the state is constantly being referred to, "Han Fei" might be inevitable. (Incidentally, I agree WT:MOS is probably a more appropriate venue if you still have questions)—Bagumba (talk) 02:34, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
@HanFeiZiFuRen: The general rules can be found in MOS:SURNAME (which is about subsequent use), MOS:GIVENNAME (which is about cultural specific rules), and MOS:SAMESURNAME (which covers cases with people of the same surname). The basic rule is that after the first mention, a person should generally be referred to by just their surname, and generally speaking, Chinese biographies shouldn't have too big of a problem with this. That is why Chinese names don't have any culture-specific rules like Vietnamese names, which mandate that the given name be given precedent because of how prevalent certain surnames are. Of course, the MOS is a guideline, not a hard-and-fast rule (like most things on Wikipedia), and in cases like the example you pointed out in Han Fei, it may be necessary to prevent confusion by using the full name. In fact, most of that particular article actually continues with the full name. I've actually fixed up the example that you pointed out, because I agree that it has the potential for confusion. bibliomaniac1506:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
If I create a page to list 4 people sharing a surname, should that be a dab page or name page? As in the name has no existing Wikipedia article except people with the surname and red links for an animal genus. Maybe this has already been covered somewhere?2A02:C7F:38FC:A300:2DF5:1F4C:B280:896E (talk) 01:40, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
If should list these 4 people and have the template {{surname}} at the bottom. I assume all of them have wikipedia articles. Please create this page, and I will show you how to deal with the animal genus. Since you don't have user account, you can only create the page in the draft space, see WP:DRAFT#Creating and editing drafts. Please let us know when you do this, and we will help you out with the rest. Lembit Staan (talk) 09:41, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The surname article Abela has a huge wall of text apparently supported by three references but no inline citations. Someone more familiar with the MoS could diagnose this or fix it better than I can. 93 (talk) 05:23, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Is it standard practice to use a disambiguation page in a list to substitute for listing the articles individually even when there are only two or three articles on the disamb page? For example in Lancaster (surname), the disamb redirect "Mark Lancaster (disambiguation), multiple people" is used to substitute the two articles, Mark Lancaster, Baron Lancaster of Kimbolton and Mark Lancaster (artist). This seems to me to be making it more difficult for the reader to find the articles they want for little gain. If a list article is becoming unwieldy, and/or if there are many articles on the disamb page, as in the case with List of people with surname Brown and the disamb pages Aaron Brown, Adam Brown, Alex Brown, etc, listed at List_of_people_with_surname_Brown#Disambiguation_pages, then using that system seems appropriate. But for disamb pages with less than five entries, I am unsure of the benefits.
If this matter has been previously discussed, and consensus is to include disamb pages of less than five articles in a list article, then fine - it's just that this is not an area I travel in frequently, and it looks a little unwieldy to me. I have notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists and Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy (as it seems to be mainly lists of people's names where this happens) of this discussion.
Thomas McDonell (born 1986), actor, musician and artist in the United States
Two of these are listed at MacDonnell (surname), none of these are especially prominent, and none of these are very helpful for search or navigation. According to WP:NOPRIMARYTOPIC, it's probably time for a knowledgeable editor (administrator?) to set up a disambiguation page specifically for Thomas McDonnell.
Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I have noticed that @Fourthords: has moved Africa (surname)toList of people with surname Africa with edit summary "article has no sourced prose about the titular surname, but is just a list of people with the same; in keeping with precedent at other "List of people with surname [X]" lists". I'm not sure I support this: any expansion of the article to include substantive content about the surname would require a page swap back again, and this is a Pandora's box: there are very, very many surname SIAs of this type. Does this project support that move and others like it? Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:10, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion
On biography page, a proposal at the Village pump has suggested moving clarifications on surname order from hatnotes to footnotes. In
a discussion on that page, I’ve proposed that the we update the Infobox Person template to include infobox parameters for a variety of “surname” elements across languages, such as “patronym” and “matronym”.
I know this project is for editing name pages themselves, but I assume someone here will know the right place to discuss adding Anthroponympy information to Infoboxes for biography pages. Tvquizphd (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for seeking advice here, Tvquizphd, but this is a discussion fork. I'll put a formal neutral invite to the VPR discussion below, and anyone interested should comment there, not here, to keep things centralized. {{u|Sdkb}}talk18:16, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I just created Ranasinghe (name), which is a patronymic Sinhalese name according to the latter article. I placed a generic hndis template at the bottom, would calling it a surname be correct, as everyone besides Ranasinghe Premadasa seems to use it as a surname? Is Ranasinghe both Ranasinghe Premadasa's given name and a patronymic? 93 (talk) 07:06, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Discussion to talk about "See also" sections of "Just_n"
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
RS
Latest comment: 2 years ago17 comments3 people in discussion
User:Fram, I see you have removed sources at Charleson, Charleston (name) and Antionette based on the fact that the sourcing was not up to WP:RS standards. I asked on your talk space whether there are some fields where RS standards can be waived. You said that this never occurs. Yet we have policy such as WP:PRIMARY when the regular standards do not apply. I see almost no reliable sources in this field. It seems common for editors here to post pages without sources at all or with substandard RS. -TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 11:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Thinkbabynames is a one man site ("This site and its information are maintained by me, Kian") combining apparently reliable sources (which we should then use directly) with "contributions on baby name meanings from helpful users all over the world.". Fram (talk) 11:51, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Houseofnames is a commercial site which no special reputation for fact checking or reliability. When looking at e.g. the "Janssen" entry there[5] it should be avoided at all costs (the "Early Origins of the Janssen family" section is laughable in its lack of anyting specific). Vandersteen again is written in a way to make people with this name feel as if they belong to a very important family ("acquiring a status and influence which was envied by the princes of the region", "In their later history the surname became a power unto themselves and were elevated to the ranks of nobility as they grew into this most influential family.") Hey look, when I look for Schiltz[6], I get "each house acquiring a status and influence which was envied by the princes of the region. " and "the surname became a power unto themselves and were elevated to the ranks of nobility as they grew into this most influential family." and the same nonsense reference to the Teylingen castle. It's just a generator of random nonsense designed to sell stuff, the complete opposite of a WP:RS. Fram (talk) 12:00, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
User:Fram, clearly there is a lot of flowery content. However, I rely on that site to help me understand name origins. In terms of what names are related to Charles or not it is reliable. This morning it helped me distingusish between whether Karolik and Korolik are related to Charles. I consider it a reliable (Tertiary) source in regards to this content. These sources are good for understanding what parts of the world names come from. However, the name meaning stuff gets WP:CRUFTy.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm not complaining about "flowery language", I'm complaining about completely made up, utterly unreliable information. That there may be some correct information sprinkled inbetween is not really relevant; it is obvious that a site which produces such garbage as houseofnames should never be used on Wikipedia, no matter if you find it useful or not. Fram (talk) 13:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
User:Fram, I have been doing a lot of work on {{Anthony}}, {{Charles}} and to a lesser extent {{Nicholas}} and {{Anastasia (name)}}, I have been adding a bunch of names to each template and use these sources for the purpose of confirming that a name is related to the same root source that is at issue. Like I said earlier, just today, used it to confirm that Karolik is while Korolik is not in the Charles family. These sources are pretty reliable for that content. Furthermore, they are reliable for language of origin and countries of prevalence. Made up or not, that is not the stuff I am citing. I don't quote stuff like "The surname Anton was first found in Saxony, where the name became noted for its many branches with the region, each house acquiring a status and influence which was envied by the princes of the region. In their later history the name became a power unto themselves and were elevated to the ranks of nobility as they grew into this most influential family. The name is associated with Saint Anthony (Antonius,) the founder of monasticism and the patron saint of farmers." from https://www.houseofnames.com/Anton-family-crest I use the basic stuff at Anton (surname).--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:38, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
(ec)Not clear what primary sources have to do with this. The discussion is about sources like this, which aren't up to WP:RS standards any way you look at it. But also the use of sites like forebears.io and many other dubious name or ancestry sites which are way too often automatic scrapings of other sources and books, and statistics with unclear sourcing and methodology. Fram (talk) 11:49, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Name-doctor? Which discusses the numerological value and chakra number of names? Forebears.io, where Janssens gives me a user-submission as only explanation[7], is not a wiki? Kidpaw has no indication why it would be a notable site at all, seems instead like a cheap scraper of information from elsewhere. Tertiary sources should be reliable in their own right (e.g. Britannica), not random websites that take their information perhaps, if you're luckyn from reliable secondary sources. Fram (talk) 12:08, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps, but it may help to first hear from other editors with this project, to see if these sources are generally accepted by the project, or whether it is one or two editors with this issue and then perhaps the other project members can guide them to other, acceptable sources. Fram (talk) 13:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
I've started a discussion about one of these sources at WP:RSN#Houseofnames.com. More similar discussion will probably follow. Perhaps there we can get consensus abotu whether these sources are acceptable or not. Fram (talk) 11:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
Name list entry
Latest comment: 2 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
I have received a message which I assume refers to this edit. Do we have a written guideline on inclusion criteria for lists of people in name articles? WP:NAMELIST would support my action if Pevsner were a dab, but it's not. I can't find anything concrete in MOS or WP:APOS (which is an essay anyway). The IP presents (for the first time) a case for the subject passing WP:JOURNALIST but we have no article, just one mention in Hudson Valley Rail Trail. Please can anyone help? (I don't know where the "worthy" quote comes from. I watch the page because new links to Pevsner are invariably intended for Sir Nikolaus Pevsner.) Certes (talk) 15:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Maybe WP:APORED, and to a lesser extent WP:WTAF? (yes, both have only essay status). Personally, I leave entries alone if the subject is notable in a very obvious sort of way (say, a government minister), or if it's less clearly notable (or even sub-notable) but described at good length in a related article (say, a member of a band in the article about the band, or a famous murderer in the article about the crime). – Uanfala (talk)00:33, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. I can back away from this case as the editor just received a site ban, but APORED will be a useful link for the future. Certes (talk) 00:46, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
It seems that in spite of WP:APORED, {{Charles}} is going to be deleted. The following are the notes from the template talk regarding pages not created or links not included:
These names are worth looking at in the future. Currently, either there is a single relevant encyclopedic article or there are multiple names but no source linking the name to this content.
Singleton given names
Carellin
Carellina
Cariel
Carji
Carlan
Carlese
Carlester
Carletes
Carleth
Carlia
Carlicia
Carolein
Carolena
Caryle
Charleszetta
Charleta
Charlis
Charlise
Charlison
Chuckey
Chuckii
Karalina
Karalyn
Kari Lynn
Karilynn
Kari-Lynn
Karleigh
Karletta
Károlyné
Roline
Singleton surnames
Carlesi
Carlesso
Carleto
Carlotti
Carlovich ⋅
Charlette
Charlson
de Charleton
Di Caro
DiCaro
di Carli
Karlíček
Karlino
Karlsons
Karlzon
Kharla
Kharlton
McCarrel
O'Carolan
Qarlsson
Has or would have multiple entries but unclear connection to the name. Need content saying nickname of, diminutive of, derivative of, variant of, son of, or descendant of Charles. (p.s. I have been including -ton and -ston suffixes as well)
Carlesimo
Carlevarijs
Carliss
Charlon
Karleuša
Chickie (nickname)
Only alternate derivation content found. Need content saying nickname of, diminutive of, derivative of, variant of, son of, or descendant of Charles. (p.s. I have been including -ton and -ston suffixes as well)
Given names
Arlo
Arlette
Caddy
Charo (primarily nickname for Rosario, occasionally for Charlotte, but none found)
Ina (Sometimes nickname for Carol/Caroline/Carolina, but none found)
Curly/Curley (pages currently merged; Curley is associated with Charles, no examples found; of the Curlys one is first named Charles, one is middle named Charles and another middle named Carlyle)
Karrell
Lolita (predominately nicknames for Dolores, but also for Carol/Charlotte, no examples found)
John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)
It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.
The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.
Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Khouri seems a bit of a mess at present - the list of nameholders is in no obvious order. There was a major change to the article in Dec 2020 with the summary "This article is about the LEVANTINE Khoury. Including people with the same or similar last name may only be included here if they have the same origin Levantine origin. Including a bunch of disambiguations that point to a surname that has nothing to do to its Levantine counterpart/variant defeats the purpose of this article.", at which point the structure was changed from a list split into differently-spelled names to a single list of indecipherable ordering.
The initial section, about the history etc of the name, has a single source which includes one relevant phrase: "Among Lebanese and other Arabic-speaking Christians a common surname is Khoury, an Arabic word for "priest" ... ", but has no sources to support the rest of its content. PamD15:39, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
Surname template
Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion
Update{{Lambert-surname}} (renamed mid-AfD) has been deleted. There are about 50 similar unsourced, unreliable, cluttering, navbox templates produced by the same editor which I intend to propose for deletion. Any thoughts? PamD08:51, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Should the "Presidents and prime ministers" section have removed from it the lists of military campaigns as “one of the principal commanders” against each name? Comment here. DeCausa (talk) 08:42, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
General question as to if anyone has insight about the given name Brayan? I ask because I recently populated the page Brayan with notable people who have that given name, by doing a search using the look from template. Oddly (to me), every person with that given name who has an article on Wikipedia is a sports figure. They are predominantly footballers (soccer players), plus a few other sports, but there is not a single example of a non-sports figure out of the 40 or so biographical articles. It also looks to be a relatively "new" name, as all of those people were born in the 1980s or later. Seems unusual, so thought I'd ask. Dmoore5556 (talk) 05:45, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, Please note that Diego, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBottalk00:05, 1 August 2022 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I have just nominated McLachlan and MacLachlan to be merged, and I think this should generally be the practice with relatively short entries for McFoo and MacFoo names, since they will otherwise share a common history and pronunciation. BD2412T23:49, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
RFC on disambig and surname pages
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Can this category be moved to "Surnames of Old English origin" please? Because this is how Wikipedia refers to the language, "Anglo-Saxon" more commonly refers to the culture in England during the Dark Ages. The term has also become contentious among scholars, in part because of its adoption by the far right [8]. PotterPayper (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments3 people in discussion
I was surprised to find that John Fallon (golfer) is not listed on Fallon (surname), and was going to add him; then I realised that there is a DAB page John Fallon, where he is listed, but that is not linked from the surname page.
How should this be handled? Should the contents of John Fallon be transferred to the surname page, and the DAB page retired? Or is it appropriate to add a link to the DAB page (which it seems to me ought to be a APO page anyway)? --ColinFine (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
The dab should be kept, since someone looking for "John Fallon" is most likely looking for someone specifically on that page, and does not need to a see a list of results irrelevant to their search; a link to the page should be included at Fallon (surname). Note that there are well over 100,000 disambiguation pages at well-established full names like this. BD2412T00:28, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Best to follow the precedent already set on the Fallon (surname) page for Richard and Sean, by adding a link to the John Fallon dab page.
That said, to my mind these links to dab pages from surname pages are not very useful to the reader. If they want to learn about a poet, guitarist or scientist called Fallon, they should be able to scan down a list of Fallons, looking for poets etc, without having to click out into umpteen separate dab pages. Someone was working, a while back, on a way to transclude name lists from dab pages into surname lists, but I don't know how far that got. PamD00:31, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong with duplicating the content between the surname page and the disambiguation page, if the surname page is distributed by something like profession or era. BD2412T01:37, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks. I missed the fact that some of the entries were already DABs. And that was exactly my use-case: doing a crossword, I had come to the conclusion that the answer must depend on there being a golfer called Fallon, and I went to Fallon (surname) and didn't find one. Google showed me that there was a golfer called John Fallon, which led me to this question. ColinFine (talk) 17:33, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
I have created a draft page that contains information about the history of the surname, using it's original (and still current) Irish spelling Draft:Ó Ríordáin. This page includes the most common anglicised spelling variations, including the ones referenced in the individal articles that I listed above.
Unfortunately this page was declined due to a lack of secondary sources. To my knowledge these secondary sources do not exist so the reviewer suggested I reach out to this group to get advice on how to proceed. Thesraid (talk) 11:58, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
Ah, a wortwhile effort. You draft looks good and thorough @Thesraid but needs more sourcing and slightly more encyclopedic language. In order to find more secondary sources, I suggest you look at how authors did the sourcing in other Irish spelling last names articles such as Ó Rothláin. You can find more examples in the: Category:Irish-language surnames.
In your draft article, I would sort the list of people with the name by variants. I wouldn't suggest merging those three articles (O'Riordan, Riordan, & Reardon), instead just add a link in those articles to the Ó Ríordáin article when it passes. Don't give up on the Draft:Ó Ríordáin article, it is a worthy addition! Unrelated, have you considered adding an article on Ó Ríordáin to the https://ga.wikipedia.org/ ? - Wil540 art (talk) 18:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
27 Jan '23
Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 1 year ago19 comments4 people in discussion
Hi everyone. At Talk:Historiography of the Eighty Years' War, Ereunetes and I ran into an issue of whether to capitalise or omit words such as van, de, der, den etc. in Dutch surnames whenever their first name is not mentioned. I said that capitalisation of words such as van in modern surnames is indeed a (rather recent) convention in written Dutch that appears to have arisen out of a need to distinguish such surnames from other words in a sentence that aren't part of the surname. This risk of confusion is minimal in English as it doesn't regularly use van, de, der, den in front of surnames, so with the exception of names such as Van Halen, you are right that this convention has no necessity in English. But especially for names before civil registration was introduced the Low Countries in 1811 by Napoleon, there appears to be no agreement amongst modern scholars whether to capitalise or omit such words whenever a person's first name isn't mentioned, especially for non-noble people whose surname isn't a dynastic title, but often reflects the place of origin (or profession) of a patrilineal ancestor. Is there any convention on English Wikipedia about this? I couldn't find it, but I would presume participants in this project would know it if there was any. If not, we might want to set one up to address future issues more easily. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:00, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't know of any conventions specific to Wikipedia, as I'm only here casually, but names have always interested me, and this page was on my watchlist. I would say it makes the most sense to follow standard English conventions when writing about persons with Dutch compound names in English. If there's no personal name, include and capitalize the whole surname; if the full name (or at least one personal name) is present, don't capitalize the prepositions/preposition-like words, unless there's evidence that the person himself intentionally did otherwise. So, "Cornelius van der Grift went to buy some pickles", but "Van Dyck was ambushed by orcs while returning from the bank". Note that in some contexts (certainly American people) the prepositions are usually capitalized even within a name: Martin Van Buren, Dick Van Dyke. Unless your sources omit the prepositions, don't do it—I've never seen it done, although perhaps it is in some English-language sources dealing with Dutch history. P Aculeius (talk) 16:02, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
I am one of the people with my colleague Nederlandse Leeuw who started this discussion (as a sidebar) on Talk:Historiography of the Eighty Years' War. I think we already found the page van (Dutch) which addresses the problem for Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans, but not for English, or American. It appears that those languages use different conventions on the capitalization of the family-name affix "van" within sentences. In Dutch, for instance, the word should be capitalized within a sentence, when the surname is used without the preceding Christian name ("Van Leeuwenhoek"), but not capitalized when the full name is used ("Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek"). However, the article Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is an example of a Wikipedia article that uses a different convention (we suspect the American one) that spells the stand-alone surname within a sentence with a lowercase "v". It may seem a trivial problem, but for a native Dutch speaker the use of the apparently "American" convention ("van Leeuwenhoek") jars, while in my experience some American editors object to the use of the Dutch convention ("Van Leeuwenhoek") in Anglophone Wikipedia articles. Ereunetes (talk) 22:11, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I suspect that this isn't so much a convention as the writer guessing how to treat the name, and applying his choice consistently. Standard English conventions for capitalization would agree with the way you describe it in Dutch, and it's what I suggested above, as a native speaker of American English. If normal English capitalization happens to produce a result consistent with Dutch practice, then that seems like a good argument for doing it the same way on Wikipedia, unless the individual in question expresses a clear preference for something else, or it's treated consistently in published scholarship. P Aculeius (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
To P. Aculeus: Thanks for your reply. First of all, the capitalization in published scholarship is not consistent; both types of capitalization are used for the same surname by different authors. So that does not help us out of the quandary. But I think there may be a twist which may explain why in many Wikipedia articles the capitalization is not done conform the general rule for capitalization of Dutch surnames containing affixes in English (like van which is also a preposition, and de which is also a definite article; examples Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and Jan de Witt). My hypothesis is that these Anglophone editors do not recognize these Dutch surnames as the noun-phrases they are, but treat the preposition and the definite article as free-standing entities in the sentence, in which case it is not "logical" to capitalize them, unlike the noun to which they relate. In other words these family-name affixes are not recognized as such, which misidentification leads to "incorrect" capitalization. But one cannot expect laymen in linguistic matters to understand such obscure subtleties. If my hypothesis is correct, we native Dutch speakers may be "in the right" if we insist on the Dutch (and according to you also English) convention for capitalization of the affixes, but enforcing such a norm would not be politic, to say the least. In any case, our question was occasioned by our fear that as non-native English speakers we ourselves were "in the wrong" if we applied the "Dutch" capitalization convention in our English Wikipedia articles. Thanks for putting my mind at rest in this respect. To Uanfala: Also thanks for your reply, which appears to legitimize the application of the "Dutch" convention. But in view of what I wrote before, I think it would be impolitic to formalize the rule retro-actively, as this might cause a lot of unrest under Wikipedians who used the "wrong" kind of capitalization in their articles in good faith. Of course, an entry in the manual you mention might be useful for future reference. Ereunetes (talk) 03:22, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Still replying to @Uanfala: I have followed your link to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography# Culture-specific usages and happened upon the problem of the lexicographical ordering of surnames for Collation in Defaultsort. see Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#Sort_by_surname This is a problem for Dutch surnames also, that is only cursorily touched upon in van (Dutch) (that article also conflates the problems of collation and capitalization in my view). The affix van is so ubiquitous in Dutch surnames, that it is useless to sort names in directories by it. So the Dutch sort on the first letter of the noun in the surname, and then append the prepended affixes after the surname. Example:"Meijlen, J.P. van der." I myself have always followed this convention in Defaultsort in my articles. Unfortunately, in American phone directories Dutch names with van are mostly ordered under "V", and looking at some Wikipedia pages listing categories of Wikipedia articles (for which Defaultsort is used), my impression is that many Wikipedians also follow this procedure. So the Dutch aspect of the subject is then also covered under "V" :-). I do not intend to become involved in editing these kinds of manual pages myself (it is not my kind of expertise), so I hope you (or a friend) might pick up on this?--Ereunetes (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Interesting! I don't think I'll be able to do anything here myself: this is outside my area of expertise and I don't really care about categories and titles much. There are people who do though: maybe throw a suggestion at one of the MOS talk pages? – Uanfala (talk) 21:42, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
@Uanfala Sorry to return to the same subject again. But I think I discovered why the flouting of the "rule" that stand-alone Dutch surnames starting with a family-name affix like deorvan should be capitalized, despite the fact that they should be lowercase within a proper name, is so ubiquitous, may be partly due to this sentence in the MOS: "Minor elements in certain names are not capitalized, but this can vary by individual: Marie van Zandt, John Van Zandt. Use the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources; for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications." Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Personal_names In itself there is nothing wrong with the sentence as it describes an eminently reasonable policy. However the two examples given, that concentrate on two capitalization conventions in two different languages, namely Dutch, and American English, without mentioning this, may give rise to misunderstandings by the unwary reader, as two different matters are confused here. The first is the fact of the two different national capitalization conventions itself, and the second that concerning the Dutch convention there is a difference between stand-alone use and within-a-sentence use. In my view it would have been better to unravel the two problems and deal with them separately. And to choose different examples for the MOS section. Maybe even more importantly, the clause Minor elements in certain names are not capitalized can give rise to the problem, as this may be unduly generalized as pertaining to all cases of "minor elements" in a surname, such as the affix van in question, if one is not aware of the superseding Dutch convention of capitalizing stand-alone surnames. Maybe we should kick this upstairs to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization discussions ongoing (keep at top of talk page)? --Ereunetes (talk) 22:21, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
I should have done this before :-) To "prove" my assertions that Dutch stand-alone surnames starting with a family-name affix like van are capitalized, and that the same noun-phrase is left uncapitalized in a full proper name, one need look no further than Wikipedia: Dutch name. Unfortunately, this need not decide the issue. The MOS-rule I critized above states: Use the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources;. Let's take the example of the treatment of Rijckloff van Goens. This Wikipedia article, though Anglophone, follows the Dutch capitalization convention, as does the version in the Dutch Wikipedia. However, there was also Rijklof Michael van Goens, an 18th century Dutch pamphletteer (who only has a page in the Dutch Wikipedia, which does not follow the Dutch convention, only proving that there are illiterate Dutch Wikipedians) who is mentioned in both Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic (1995) and Simon Schama, Patriots and Liberators (1977), both considered "reliable" historians, writing about Dutch history. Israel uses the Dutch capitalization rule (cf. pp. 1063-1064), but Schama uses stand-alone van Goens in a sentence (cf. p. 84). They can't both be right, but how to choose between them? It surely cannot come down to counting the citations of both adherents of the "Dutch" convention, and of the "other" convention and let the majority decide? How would that work out in practice? Ereunetes (talk) 02:43, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
If there is no consensus in actual practice, then it makes no sense to implement a rule taking one side or the other in Wikipedia. The best practice would therefore be to amend the guideline to state what the usual practice is in Dutch, and that some English scholarship follows this practice, while some does not. I think this is as clear as it can get when the surname comes in the middle of a sentence. Do you know of any authority for not capitalizing a surname at the beginning of a sentence? I have no doubt that this occasionally happens when the writer is unsure of what to do, but I don't imagine that there is much in the way of authority for it, in which case we should at least be able to make a recommendation for this situation. P Aculeius (talk) 03:26, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
I do not know of any linguistic authority in English for not capitalizing a surname at the beginning of a sentence. That is because in practice nobody does that, including the people who do not capitalize in the middle of a sentence. The problem is with the latter group. The Dutch authority for capitalizing separable family-name affixes (called tussenvoegsels in a separate Wikipedia article, because they think affix is not specific enough and separable affix is a redirect page to "separable verb") in stand-alone Dutch surnames is clear enough and is alluded to in "Dutch name" and other places, like List of family name affixes. What is very frustrating to me is that I can find no linguistic authority (English or Dutch) for not capitalizing such a separable family-name affix in a stand-alone Dutch surname within a sentence. And still that happens very frequently in English Wikipedia articles and even in the "outside world". I referred to Jonathan Israel and Simon Schama as practitioners of either capitalization habit. I have since found that Israel consistently follows the official Dutch guidelines in his work, and Schama consistently flaunts them. But Schama goes further in his Rembrandt's Eyes (1999), where he consistently drops the vans and van ders in the text (that is also a solution of course), and where I found a long list of van der surnames (uncapitalized) under the "V" in the index, like in any American phone directory. Helmut Koenigsberger follows Schama's example in his Monarchies, states generals and parliaments: the Netherlands in the 15th and 16th centuries (2001). On the other hand, the American scholar James Tracy conforms, like Israel, to the Dutch capitalization norm in his The Founding of the Dutch Republic: War, Finance, and Politics in Holland, 1572–1588 (2008). In short, it is a total puinhoop (debris heap) if I may use a batavism in this context:-) So I agree with you that the guideline could be amended in the sense you propose. However, the terminology should be more specific. "Minor elements" could be much more specific. Elsewhere I found the term particles (where grammatical particles was intended) in a MOS rule about collation, but I think that refers to "loose" exclamations, like Oh and Ah also. My personal preference would be to use separable family-name affix, as this is at least English, but in a pinch I could agree to tussenvoegsel as there is a Wikpedia article they could link to. And the difference between the capitalization practices for the first separable family-name affix (because further affixes should remain uncapitalized, except in some American and Belgian cases) in a stand-alone Dutch surname (but maybe this could be generalized to French and Spanish surnames too; I don't know), and for "not stand-alone" cases where initials, or Christian names (but not aristocratic or other predicates; e.g. it should still be Cardinal De Jong) precede the surname in (the middle of) a sentence. The two examples given in the current guideline could remain, but they should be qualified by nationality, e.g. (Dutch) and (American of Dutch extraction). However, I think it would really be a nice exercise to use the married names of Audrey Hepburn's mother (both from her first and second marriages), properly capitalized, as examples :-)
I have been thinking on possibilities to broaden the approach that heretofore has been mostly focused on the problems with capitalization of Dutchpersonal names. The guideline we are talking about has of course a much broader scope. I have been looking at a number of other articles like Dutch name, such as Spanish name, French name, German name, English name and other such articles in the category of Personal names and Anthroponymy. All have sections on capitalization and collation (and Maiden and married names) in their respective spheres. The technical terms differ, however. In the French article the term particule is used for what I have termed separable family-name affixes; in the Dutch article tussenvoegsel (equally left untranslated) is used (and should be partnered by voorvoegsel (prefix) and achtervoegsel (suffix) for completeness); in Spanish naming customs the term particle is used for the phenomenon that interests us. I think it would be helpful to name all these technical terms in the guideline, if only to avoid a battle of linguistic ideologies. But that said, the guideline could refer to the "national" articles for specifics on the orthographic, capitalization and collation prescriptions that are in force (with different severity of legal authority) in the respective spheres. That way the guideline would not have to be overly long (especially if wikilinks are used to help elucidate the several technical terms used). Ereunetes (talk) 22:29, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
I would like to to propose a number of amendments to the section Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Personal namesPersonal names are the names given to people, but can be used as well for some animals (like race horses) and natural or man-made inanimate objects (like ships and geological formations). As proper nouns, these names are almost always first-letter capitalized. An exception is made when the lowercase variant has received regular and established use in reliable independent sources. In these cases, the name is still capitalized when at the beginning of a sentence, per the normal rules of English. Minor elements in certain names are not capitalized, but this can vary by individual: Marie van Zandt, John Van Zandt. Use the style that dominates for that person in reliable sources; for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications.
The paragraph from "As proper nouns etc." should become: "As proper names these names are almost always first-letter capitalized. However, those capitalization conventions differ by country of origin of the biographical subject in question. Use the style that dominates for a person in reliable sources; for a living subject, prefer the spelling consistently used in the subject's own publications. However this is not always feasible. Following the advice of the Chicago Manual of Style the national conventions on capitalization should be followed. Information on these conventions may be gleaned from a number of Wikipedia articles in Personal Names and Anthroponymy, like Dutch name (Flemish name redirects to this), French name, German name, Italian name, Portuguese name, and Spanish name (some of these titles redirect). The conventions may be somewhat confusing to the Anglophone mind. There are particular difficulties with names that contain (separable) family-name affixes. Examples of these are given in List of family name affixes. The technical term family-name affix is not universal. The Dutch use tussenvoegsel; the French and Spanish use a translation of the term Grammatical particle though this term actually refers to a different concept. However this may be, these articles may further elucidate the subject and therefore be useful for a correct application of the conventions. The U.S. as a nation of immigrants, presents a special problem as these immigrants often flouted the capitalization conventions of their countries of extraction. Nevertheless, in this case the American practice should be followed. Example Martin Van Buren (instead of Martin van Buren, according to the Dutch convention), DePaepe (instead of De Paepe), Mrs. Vanmeer (instead of Mrs. Van Meer). Finally, be mindful of the conventions on Maiden and married names for women." Ereunetes (talk) 22:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
I don't have much experience with these issues on Wikipedia, but the proposed additions seem to me like good advice. But the place to take them forward will have to be that guideline's own talk page: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters. Also, given the degree of past consensus that probably exists for the current wording, I suspect that such a change will likely also eventually need an RfC. – Uanfala (talk) 10:53, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
@Uanfala Going to Wikipedia talk: Manual of Style/Capital letters was exactly what I had in mind also. But how do I go about that? I understand the topic has to be added to the list at the top of the page. Do I do that by adding a new topic (i.e. lower down the page); enter the text, and then put the title in the list at the top? And as far as the text goes, I think I should briefly allude to the discussion on this talk page (for reference) and then enter the current text of the guideline, followed by the proposed amendment? The RfC would follow later, if at all. Ereunetes (talk) 20:08, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
You can ignore the section Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization discussions ongoing (keep at top of talk page) (that keeps track of discussions on other pages) and just start a new topic as usual. Just point to this discussion here, add a brief summary of the main issue, and explain what changes you're proposing (the template {{talk quote}} may be useful for clearly marking current or proposed guideline text). Yeah, an RfC comes at the next stage: you're looking to get informal feedback first, get an idea of how likely the proposal is to pass, and see what tweaks can be made to it. – Uanfala (talk) 12:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Gaelicbow is saying that the best thing to do is to remove the leading prose in McNallyMcNally (surname) because there is, as they claim, if I understand correctly, a controversy around what the true etymology is. There seem to be elements of a slow-burn edit war starting around September last year.
When there is a dispute about whether something should say A or B, removing that thing altogether usually does not resolve the dispute and usually does not improve the encyclopedia. Maybe it should say A, maybe it should say B, maybe it should say both A and B, and maybe it should say "according to X, A is true, and according to Y, B is true". But maybe I'm wrong! Maybe it's totally the best thing to remove all of this prose as none of it is good.
I am asking for an expert in anthroponymy to take a look at this article, review the sources for reliability, and state their opinion on what the supported etymology or etymologies are. Thank you—Alalch E.23:06, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes, please take this notification as an invitaton to that discussion. I'll mark it as resolved here if and when it resolves. —Alalch E.07:37, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Quality assessments are used by Wikipedia editors to rate the quality of articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.
No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.
However, if your project decides to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments3 people in discussion
If I go to Vulpius, it transcludes Template:Fox-surname, which displays the text Family names derived from the word "fox", and an image of the fox.
There are two problems with this
The claim that "Vulpius" derives from a word meaning "fox" is uncited.
On a mobile, the template does not appear at all, so that claim does not appear. The picture of the fox, however, does appear (though only in preview, not when viewing the article) - and is thus completely unexplained.
We could get round this by adding the origin to the article - but I dislike adding information to articles without a source, and my google-fu has failed to come up with any source for "Vulpius", never mind a reliable one. I agree that it is likely to come from "vulpes", but I have not found a source.
The reason I am posting here is that I think that this is a wider problem than just this article. Template:Fox-surname lists 24 names. Five of these are not links to articles (and so do not belong in a navigation template); most of the articles mention that the name means "fox" - Renard and Zorro do not - but citation is not required since the name directly means "fox" or "foxes". Vulpius is the only one, I think, where the name is altered. ColinFine (talk) 22:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm not an expert on German surnames, but I do know that a lot of prominent German speakers used Latinized versions of their original surnames, and if you look at the earliest entry on this page, Melchior Vulpius—although it's not in the English version, it is in the German one—his name was originally Melchior Fuchs. Vulpius is exactly how the Romans would have derived a nomen gentilicium, what we would call a surname (our usage differs slightly, in that the Latin "cognomen", or surname, referred to an additional surname following the gentilicium, but the gentilicium was the essential family name handed down from father to son).
Although I did not expect to find any results in Roman epigraphy, just for the sake of thoroughness I checked the Clauss-Slaby Datenbank a few minutes ago, and found an example of a Roman with this very name! Marcus Vulpius Optatus was a freedman of the imperial household, who buried his wife, Mutia Isias, aged thirty-three, at Rome (undated, but likely first- or second-century, given the form of the names). There's also an inscription from Ocriculum in Umbria, ostensibly the grave of a Marcus Vulpius Nepos, aged six, dedicated by his father, of the same name. However, this inscription might be a modern forgery.
Now, you could cite a Latin dictionary for vulpes, but Vulpius is likely too rare a surname to show up in discussions of Roman names. The best I could do is point to Chase's "The Origin of Roman Praenomina" (1897), where there is an exemplary (providing examples, certainly not intended to be complete, if such a thing were even possible) list of gentilicia derived from ordinary things (including animals, but I don't believe mentioning "Vulpius"). It's from Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, and the article is available from the Internet Archive. I wish I knew where you could document the name's etymology, but I don't know what resources are available for German surnames. P Aculeius (talk) 02:50, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion
It surprises me that there seems to be no article about names like (María del) Rosario, (María de) Guadalupe and so on. —Tamfang (talk) 02:40, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi from Project Disambiguation!
I'm wondering if Miguel (disambiguation) should be shifted to a "given name" list, or merged with Miguel (surname) into a larger "name" list. The name obviously has some interesting notability - see Chicano names, whose mention of de-Anglicizing Chicano names made me intrigued - but not sure how to proceed. Kawa (talk) 17:10, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi all! FYI, there are plans to adjust the code of {{Family name hatnote}} so that its text can also be used as a core for the explanatory footnote template. This should be a purely technical change that will not have any impact on the existing uses of the hatnote template. Please feel free to let us know if you have any comments. Best, {{u|Sdkb}}talk19:55, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Why did a user revert my edit?
Latest comment: 1 year ago17 comments5 people in discussion
I'm very new to Wikipedia, I'm sorry if I'm being stupid and if this is not the correct place to talk about this. On Ebony (given name) I changed "Blacks" to "black people". Someone reverted it. Why? Meowmeowimacat (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
@Meowmeowimacat: Replying on your talk page, since my reply was going to be a bit lengthier than desirable here. Incidentally I pinged you here so that you'd receive an alert about my reply and link to your talk page, in case you don't monitor this page or weren't aware that you had a talk page yet (you didn't until I posted my reply—someone else will probably send you a welcome message there soon, with helpful links to other Wikipedia policies). It's not necessary to ping everyone when you reply to their posts, but I thought it was a good idea in this instance. P Aculeius (talk) 16:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Is it? I'm not aware of any "preferred term". Which nation? In the United States, "African-American" is probably the most common right now, but all three terms are widely used, among others. Obviously "African-American" doesn't work for people from the UK, Australia, or New Zealand, and probably not for Canadians—but that doesn't establish a single "preferred term". I'm not saying that your wording is wrong, but it sounds a bit odd to me in the place where it appears, and I have some doubts about the reason given. At any rate, it might be a good idea to use edit summaries when reverting changes that aren't clearly test edits or vandalism—in fact this is what Wikipedia policy asks editors to do. It might not have avoided a talk page discussion, but it would have made it easier for the other editor to understand what was going on. P Aculeius (talk) 17:58, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
The style of the New York Times and Washington Post is currently to capitalize "Blacks." The Washington Post also capitalizes Whites while the New York Times does not. African American does not seem to be in favor any longer. No, I don't think it sounds racist. It's fairly typical in English language media. I used the prevailing style. It didn't need to be changed. I'm also going to add that the reference is to naming preferences in the United States so using the preferred style of U.S. media is appropriate.Bookworm857158367 (talk) 19:12, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
I believe the question was about replacing "black people" with "Blacks", which presumably has nothing to do with capitalization, because you can simply capitalize it if that's your objection. And while I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with it, it does sound odd—perhaps antiquated. You don't normally refer to someone as "a Black" or "a White" anymore, and the plural sounds only slightly less unusual—when I've heard it recently it's usually only following another description, and even then it still sounds a bit odd. I don't think you'll find a lot of stylebooks recommending "Blacks" over "black people" or "African-Americans" or other alternatives. It might still be acceptable, but it's not going to be "preferred". P Aculeius (talk) 20:57, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
To my (British) ear, "Blacks" (as opposed to Black people) is more reminiscent of Apartheid-era South Africa. DeCausa (talk) 07:51, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
"African American was often used, but is not always accurate as some Black people do not trace their lineage to Africa."
-That article you linked
"black
should be used only as an adjective when referring to race, ie not “blacks” but “black people” or whatever noun is appropriate."
I would have said that "African-American" would be dubious because the people concerned aren't always going to be American—I can't think of many circumstances where African-ness would be disputed; I could imagine "black" being applied to indigenous people from India or Australia, but I don't think this is commonly done anymore (I could be mistaken), and I doubt "Ebony" is a name of cultural significance in those communities. At the same time, I don't know how frequently the name "Ebony" is used by people of African descent in other English-speaking countries; it might be peculiar to (or primarily) American usage. P Aculeius (talk) 10:12, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
@Bookworm857158367 Which "national"? This may be a matter of WP:ENGVAR. The Guardian'sstyle guide, which I take as a good guide to modern educated British English, has this to say: black should be used only as an adjective when referring to race, ie not “blacks” but “black people” or whatever noun is appropriate. It goes on to say, summarised, that the capitalisation of B/black is a matter of choice. This item also directs the reader to its section on BAME, where "The Grauniad" lives up to its (previous?) reputation for being full of typos, with a reference to "furniture" where I think "future" is intended! PamD07:41, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
That was an interesting browse! Some of the advice is excellent, while other items look strange or persnickety to me—but in furniture I shall definitely know where to look for typos! P Aculeius (talk) 09:24, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
I changed the wording in the article. I don't think there was anything necessarily off about the original phrasing but I don't want it to be seen as problematic by any reader, either. I certainly didn't mean it to. It's basically just a list of people with the name and a couple of paragraphs about the usage of the name. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 09:36, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
I don't think that anyone thought you were trying to be problematic. An editor simply wanted to discuss the reversion, and didn't know how to get the ball rolling. In some places the wording you used is normal. To some people it sounds antiquated. It doesn't hurt to talk about it or get additional opinions. P Aculeius (talk) 10:12, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Well, as they say "Every day is a school day"! I've learned that "furniture", or "page furniture", is a term referring to the things on a page other than the main text and images (ie headlines, bylines, captions, etc). So the Grauniad had it right. I sent an email pointing out what a thought was a mistake, and had a courteous and prompt reply referring me to this article on the topic. I've not been the first to be confused!
Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Having half-remembered a name of one of the victims of the recent submersible tragedy, I looked up Dawood. This leads, as primary topic, to David in Islam with a hatnote pointing to Dawood (disambiguation), where there is Dawood (name), which leads to David (name) ... which mentions Dawood as an Arabic variant, but has no relevant onward link. Dawood (surname) does not exist.
Dawoud looks as if it might be a very similar name (I am not knowledgeable about Arabic names). Here we have a neat little page with a list of given-name holders and a list of surname-holders. There's a link in the lead to Daud, and a See also to David (name), but no link to David in Islam.
Someone with a knowledge of Arabic names might like to create a surname page (possibly also given-name list) for Dawood? There seem to be about 15 living people, plus others, and at present they can't easily be found.
There's Daud (name) which has a surname section that includes a "Dawood" and is linked from Daud (disambiguation). I *think* that's the more common transliteration. That's the problem where there's multiple transliterations in use - it gets messy. DeCausa (talk) 08:29, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
From what I understand Spain has decently strict laws on names, with one being required to have two surnames and at maximum two personal names with these two surnames. But I sometimes come across persons who seem to have more names than these, for example Lucía María Fátima Heredia Armada who seems to have three personal names, but I assume there is a case of a double name here, either Lucía María or María Fátima, but I don't know how to figure out which it is. ★Trekker (talk) 03:40, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
Shalini (disambiguation)
Latest comment: 11 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The only appropriate links to such pages within article prose, that I can currently think of, are links within passages that discuss names as names. —Alalch E.00:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
FYI, the article Title of authority has been proposed for deletion (WP:PROD). The first sentences summarize the subject this way:
"Title of authority, title of office or title of command is the official designation of a position held in an organization (e.g. in government or corporation) associated with certain duties of authority."
The nominator wrote this summary of their concerns:
"I searched and it does seem to be a term but not sure if notable"
There are no reliable sources cited by the article.
If you agree or disagree with deletion, there are instructions on the deletion notice for what to do.
Latest comment: 3 months ago10 comments5 people in discussion
As many people know, wikipedia is full of wrong information that when some try to correct it, they are prevented. The same thing happens with the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnich
It is absolutely wrong to claim that the surname is Bosnich - Anglicisation. This surname originates from Bosnia (Bosnia and Herzegovina). In Bosnia and Herzegovina it is pronounced Bosnić.
Members of the Bosnich family have a family coat of arms As you know the letter『ć』does not appear in English language or any Anglican country. Not allowing these false data on the Bosnich page to be corrected and to write historically accurate statements with clear evidence is a problem for wikipedia and all members of the large Bosnich family who live around the world, and especially a large number of Bosnichs live in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnich Nedim (talk) 19:10, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
False information is that only Australians are notable people with the surname Bosnich. It is obvious that someone wants to appropriate this noble family and portray it as an Australian family. It is a shame to talk about the Bosnich family without mentioning their origins. 77.77.216.18 (talk) 09:36, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
If you have information about the surname's origins, sourced to a reliable indpendent published source, then please add it to the article. Or if there are other people named Bosnich who are notable, please create articles about them and then they can be included in the list.
This is not "someone wants to appropriate this noble family and portray it as an Australian family", but "there are three people with English Wikipedia articles and the surname Bosnich, all of whom are Australian". Very different. PamD11:02, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
The coat of arms of the Bosnich family appears as early as the 14th century. and at the beginning of the 15th century part of this family moved to Croatia. Part of this family settled in Hungary in the 16th century. The coat of arms of the Bosnich family contains elements of Bosnia and Illyria. - Source: Art rabic, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2016 "The Bosnian Heraldry".
Coat of arms of noble family Bosnich is in all Illyrian sets of coat of arms. Bosnich's who moved to Hungary were included in Hungarian noble. Coat of arms that they got in Hungary does not match this one represented here ("ILLYRIAN COAT OF ARMS BOOK" made 1340. Original stored in the Franciscan monastery of Fojnica, Bosnia and Heryegovina - Nedim Bosnich added this part in parentheses) - Source: Dr.A.Solovjev: "Additions for Bosnian or Illyrian heraldic" issued in "Glassnik of the National Museum in Sarajevo" New series, volume IX 1954. p. 93 (Messenger of National Museum in Sarajevo (Archaeology)) New series, notebook IX 1954. page 93.
It is an indisputable fact that the coat of arms of the Bosnich family originates from Bosnia and Herzegovina, as evidenced by the finds stored in Fojnica and Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
On the other hand, you cannot divide in Wikipedia the Bosnich family into American and Australian on the one hand, and Bosnian on the other or Croatian on the third, etc. etc.
What do you actually want to change? We have 2 lists: Bosnich and Bosnić. They are just an index of articles of people with these surnames. They are not articles about the name. No one is saying they are the only people in the world with these surnames. If there is someone from Bosnia with the surname "Bosnich" (not "Bosnić") then (a) an article about them could be created if the person satisfies our notability criteria and (b) they could appear in the list along with the 3 Australian people. What's the coat of arms got to do with anything? DeCausa (talk) 14:04, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
Bosnić is Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian version of family name Bosnich. Slavic people use letters č, ć ž, š, đ and it's for somebody who wants to know more about the history of three countries - Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. The family name Bosnić is pronounced the same as Bosnich in the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages.
Since the Roman, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and other empires came and disappeared in Bosnia (today's name Bosnia and Herzegovina), they all left a religious and cultural mark behind them.
So now the surname Bosnich (Bosnić) is found in Bosnian families of the Catholic, Islamic and Orthodox faiths, and members of the wider Bosnich family can be found in many countries of the world, Argentina, USA, Canada, England, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Australia and many, many other countries of the world.
Anyway, the root of that surname is in Bosnia and the name contains the name of the country of Bosnia. Bosnia was mentioned etymologically for the first time in 949. More than 1000 years ago.
So the answer to your question is that when we talk about the Bosnić and Bosnich family, we are actually talking about the same family.
Also, your article about the Bosnich family, to which you associate three Australians, is very superficial, without sufficient sources, information about the origin of the surname and facts that shed enough light on the whole story of the Bosnich surname. 77.77.216.18 (talk) 15:30, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
As was said above, if you can add relevant information, with reliable sources, to the article Bosnich, then please do so. Until then the article is a list of the people who have English Wikipedia articles and have that surname. There is nothing more to add. PamD15:38, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
Do you believe that the state of Bosnia exists?
Do you believe that there is a town of Fojnica in Bosnia?
Do you believe there is an "ILLYRIAN COAT OF ARMS BOOK" made in 1340?
You can find numerous proofs by searching Google if you don't believe me, and it's really obvious that you don't respect or trust anything I've stated, not even the sources I've provided. It's a way to underestimate someone and to use the Wikipedia page to make subjective representations of some facts about which you don't know much, but when you are offered evidence, you look for "relevant information, with reliable sources". It's a really dirty game. And that's why I'm ending this communication. 77.77.216.18 (talk) 16:02, 6 April 2024 (UTC)