Naming convention for kings, etc.

[Sandy Harris]

We have some article titles that strike me as odd, such as "Walter fitz Alan, 1st High Steward of Scotland". Why not just "Walter fitz Alan"?

There are also inconsistencies. The "Richard I" gives his successor as "John I", which redirects to "John of England", which redirects to "King John". Can we not pick one name and use it both in links and the article title? Should the articles be at "Richard I", "John I", et cetera?  Should names take precedence if they are well-known, "Richard the Lionheart", "Ethelred the Unready", "William the Conqueror", etc.? I have no strong opinion on that, but I do feel strongly that names like "Richard the Lionheart" must have some sort of article, if not a full one then at least a redirect. I'm less certain we actually need a redirect at "Richard I" if we choose "Richard the Lionheart"  as the article title, but I'd use one; it costs almost nothing.

Do we need a naming convention that includes the country, say "Richard I, of England"? I'd say not, especially since James VI of Scotland was James I of England, William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy, ...

Any comment from others, especially history editors? Any proposals for a convention we should adopt?

[Peter Schmitt]

We have some article titles that strike me as odd, such as "Walter fitz Alan, 1st High Steward of Scotland". Why not just "Walter fitz Alan"?
There are also inconsistencies.
Do we need a naming convention that includes the country, say "Richard I, of England"? I'd say not, especially since James VI of Scotland was James I of England, William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy, ...

This fits into a current discussion here .
My opinion (as user): Take the "best-known" name (and as short as possible). "William the Conquerer" and "Walter fitz Alan"
use disambiguation pages ("James" or "James I") where necessary: "James I. (England)" and redirects "James VI (Scotland)".
Make Catalogs subpages of kings for Scotland and England which lists and links them correctly.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

We have some article titles that strike me as odd, such as "Walter fitz Alan, 1st High Steward of Scotland". Why not just "Walter fitz Alan"?

There are also inconsistencies. The "Richard I" gives his successor as "John I", which redirects to "John of England", which redirects to "King John". Can we not pick one name and use it both in links and the article title? Should the articles be at "Richard I", "John I", et cetera?  Should names take precedence if they are well-known, "Richard the Lionheart", "Ethelred the Unready", "William the Conqueror", etc.? I have no strong opinion on that, but I do feel strongly that names like "Richard the Lionheart" must have some sort of article, if not a full one then at least a redirect. I'm less certain we actually need a redirect at "Richard I" if we choose "Richard the Lionheart"  as the article title, but I'd use one; it costs almost nothing.

Do we need a naming convention that includes the country, say "Richard I, of England"? I'd say not, especially since James VI of Scotland was James I of England, William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy, ...

Any comment from others, especially history editors? Any proposals for a convention we should adopt?

There's also a bit more than kings. For example, my preference is to use a primary article name of a commoner before he or she was granted a title (John Arbuthnot Fisher and Horatio Nelson) have 1st Lord Fisher and 1st Viscount Nelson mentioned in the lede, with redirects using the title. Using redirects also takes care of the situation when someone like Wellington was aristocratically "promoted".

One really can't lose variants such as Charles the Bald or Ethelred the Unready.

[Hayford Peirce]

This is a reopening of a topic that has generated fairly sharp acrimony, as I recall, in years past. There were some very strong opinions ventured by various people as they tried to impose their own conventions, whether right or wrong, on everyone else. Can someone with a long, accurate memory track down some of these earlier discussions? It might save a lot of time if we could jump to them and see if they came to any conclusive decisions....

[Russell D. Jones]

For history editors & authors, I've started the history workgroup style guide; please contribute here.

[Joe Quick]

This is a reopening of a topic that has generated fairly sharp acrimony, as I recall, in years past. There were some very strong opinions ventured by various people as they tried to impose their own conventions, whether right or wrong, on everyone else. Can someone with a long, accurate memory track down some of these earlier discussions? It might save a lot of time if we could jump to them and see if they came to any conclusive decisions....

There's this one.  But there was another too.

[Hayford Peirce]

Yes, there was certainly a much longer one at a later date than that one, since I didn't join CZ until May of '07. My vague memory is that it started out on one of the Talk pages of an article(s) that Prof. Jensen was involved with and then spilled over to either other Talk pages and/or a Forum thread.

[Joe Quick]

Yes, there was certainly a much longer one at a later date than that one, since I didn't join CZ until May of '07. My vague memory is that it started out on one of the Talk pages of an article(s) that Prof. Jensen was involved with and then spilled over to either other Talk pages and/or a Forum thread.

Yeah, I remember that it Jensen was involved.  I couldn't track down where it took place, though.  I seem to remember repeated references to an ocean line that shares a name with a British matriarch, but I can't remember which one.

[Hayford Peirce]

Yes, that rings a bell....

[Drew R. Smith]

While we're on the topic, it was recently pointed out to me that we do not use the word "king" in article titles. I actually have two questions about this.

1) Why? or rather, why not? While a neither agree nor disagree, I would like to know the reasoning behind it. And...

2) What about lesser distinctions, such as chief, chiefess, or in the case of the articles I am currently working on, ali`i (chief or high chief), ali`i aimoku (highest chief of an island), and mo`i (rulers of maui)? In many cases I've come across several different significant people who share the same name, and the only distinction would be title, or the island they are associated with.

[Russell D. Jones]

Yes, how would we render "King Philip?"

[Hayford Peirce]

While we're on the topic, it was recently pointed out to me that we do not use the word "king" in article titles. I actually have two questions about this.

1) Why? or rather, why not? While a neither agree nor disagree, I would like to know the reasoning behind it. And...

The reasoning behind it is that Prof. Jensen, who was sort of the Howard Berkowitz of the day before Howard himself joined the project, either vigorously objected to the use of the word King in the title or vigorously *supported* the use of the word King in the title, I disremember which, and a long, noisy, contentious fight ensued.  And if it wasn't Prof. Jensen, it was someone else with equally strong opinions and an equal mass of citations and references to support his own point of view.

[Shamira Gelbman]

Prof. Jensen, who was sort of the Howard Berkowitz of the day before Howard himself joined the project

Well, this can get interesting now.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Prof. Jensen, who was sort of the Howard Berkowitz of the day before Howard himself joined the project

Well, this can get interesting now.

When we met, it was. What was the place? Megiddo? Ragnarok?

[Russell D. Jones]

... it was someone else with equally strong opinions and an equal mass of citations and references to support his own point of view.

That's the way we do it !