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Too Many Brewsters

Early Years

Ralph Owen Brewster, who preferred to be known by his middle name, was born in Dexter, Maine, the son of William Edmund Brewster, a member of the Maine House of Representatives, and Carrie S. Bridges. He was a direct lineal descendant of Love Brewster, a passenger aboard the Mayflower and a founder of the town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts; and of his father Elder William Brewster, the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony, and passenger aboard the Mayflower and one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact. Through this entirely paternal line Owen Brewster is descended from Mayflower compact signer William Brewster.

Serious readability issues here. While reading I got the general idea that Owen Brewster was descended from two different Mayflower-related people, went back to figure out what the relationships were all about, considered that "Love" Brewster might have been female, wondered what a "contract signer" was, if maybe someone came over on the Mayflower and someone didn't, then saw "William Brewster" mentioned twice and wondered if this was a junior/senior thing but no it's the same William Brewster mentioned twice in the same paragraph. At this point I gave up and came here to complain about it. He's related to two people named Brewsters from the Mayflower (somehow) along paternal lines, and that's all I know. What the relationship between "William" and "Love" might have been I have no clue. If they both arrived on the Mayflower together, at different times or one or both simply signed some kind of contract, I have no idea. Suggest expanding the text and deal with each Brewster separately, and try to make some statement about their possible relationship. I also think trying to increase the contrast between real history with the fictional movie would be a good thing. Also cause of death could be mentioned.Tym Whittier (talk) 06:45, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Most Common Name

Brewster is commonly known by his full name. See [1][2][3][4]. I could also be convinced that Ralph O. Brewster would be acceptable, see [5][6][7].--User:Namiba 16:46, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Common name

Brewster's common name changed over the course of his life. Per newspapers.com, as governor, he was largely known as Ralph O. Brewster (86% of references use this iteration). Later, as a senator, he was largely known as Owen Brester (79%). This has survived as his common name; 50% of works on WorldCat reference him as Owen Brewster, 32% as Ralph Owen Brester, and 18% as Ralph O. Brewster; it also constituted 85% of his obituary notices. Star Garnet (talk) 01:58, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The common name he used during his life is not very important. What matters is the most common name used today. See the above links which demonstrate why Ralph Owen Brewster or Ralph O. Brewster are the common names today.--User:Namiba 04:10, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The sources linked above do not solidly support your point. NGA, like the Congressional Biographical Directory, tends to use full names and is thus irrelevant in determining common names [8]. Paper collections often use full names regardless of common name; this holds true for most collections at Bowdoin [9]. Maine Encyclopedia is essentially a quality blog. The Blaine House works as a common name source, but a cursory one. The sources linked for Ralph O. Brewster are from the era in which that was his common name. Counterpoints: [10] plus most senate-related resources, [11] plus dozens of other other oral histories and publications from Bates, and [12] along with most modern media. Your general point would be stronger if he was remotely well-known today. Your move of the page has been reverted and you are free to propose a move. To add context from elsewhere, here are newspaper hits for him by era:

Era	Ralph Owen Brewster	Ralph O. Brewster	Ralph Brewster	R. O. Brewster	R. Owen Brewster	Owen Brewster
with governor/gov.	30 (0%)	13,178 (85%)	1,913 (12%)	169 (1%)	8 (5%)	218 (1%)
with representative/rep./congressman	5 (0%)	5,258 (77%)	1,397 (21%)	114 (1%)	2 (0%)	23 (0%)
other, 1910-1945	75 (0%)	16,880 (58%)	8,765 (30%)	950 (3%)	109 (0%)	2,426 (8%)
with senator/sen.	428 (1%)	8,662 (11%)	2,761 (3%)	154 (0%)	152 (0%)	67,145 (85%)
other, 1945-1960	51 (0%)	429 (2%)	3,485 (14%)	110 (0%)	792 (3%)	20,070 (81%)
obituaries (1961)	75 (7%)	17 (1%)	94 (8%)	4 (0%)	6 (0%)	956 (83%)
posthumous in Maine	117 (10%)	113 (9%)	336 (28%)	2 (0%)	9 (1%)	639 (53%)

This is clearly a case of WP:NAMECHANGES where the changed name was/is widely used by RS and the change was dramatic. Ralph Owen Brewster certainly is not his common name, and Ralph O. Brewster ceased being his common name in the early 1940s. Star Garnet (talk) 05:14, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, regarding modern sources, books published in the past 25 years with a preview on Google Books that mention Brewster break down as: 162 (56%) as Owen Brewster, 67 (23%) as Ralph O. Brewster, 56 (19%) as Ralph Owen Brewster, and 4 (1%) as R. Owen Brewster. Star Garnet (talk) 06:01, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So on top of the Maine governor's office, the following use Ralph Owen Brewster: the National Governor's Association, the Maine State Archives, the Bangor Daily News, IMDB, the Maine Historical Society and its academic journal which covers the history of Maine, the National Register of Historic Places, state historian Earle Shettleworth [13], Mainer magazine, The Maine State Museum, and The Cultural Landscape Foundation. It seems that we are using different indicators of what is the most common name and I will defer to others to sort it out.--User:Namiba 13:38, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just picked one of these at random: the NHRP registration form for the Ralph Owen Brewster House. Yes, the full name is used in the name of the house -- but the description of the significance of the property begins Zions Hill, the residence of Owen and Dorothy Brewster, is ... . The narrative only once uses the full name "Ralph Owen Brewster" in mentioning him as the son of William E. Brewster but three times refers to him as "Owen Brewster". older ≠ wiser 18:44, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, now look at all of the sources posted and let us know which name is most common. The Inn itself which is located in his former home uses Ralph Owen Brewster. I should add, so does the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. and the Historical Dictionary of New England. It is obvious that the vast majority of secondary sources use his full name, isn't it?--User:Namiba 16:52, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pointing to a handful of examples does not prove a case. Buildings named after a person often use full names regardless of common name; even they go by his common name occasionally. An article about the inn goes out of its way to say that "Through most of his political career, he was known as Owen Brewster," and the owner verbally refers to him as Owen Brewster. One news article doesn't outweigh the majority of news mentions, even if you go by your standard of purely modern mentions. Owen Brewster vs. Ralph Owen Brewster vs. Ralph O. Brewster. And it should go without saying that an encyclopedia (or historical dictionary or database) is almost always going to be a mediocre determiner of a common name. Academic journals are pretty definitive in this case; JSTOR has 159 journal/chapter results for "Owen Brewster", of which only 16 reference his full name (21st century results are 66 and 11). Star Garnet (talk) 04:08, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It is actually much closer when using the proper metric. Google Scholar reveals 110 uses of "Ralph Owen Brewster" between 1993 and 2023 and 176 uses of "Owen Brewster" without the Ralph. Those who study Maine history and who study the person in detail usually use his full-name, including the Maine History journal and state historian Earle Shettleworth as well as those I pointed to above. I think we should weigh how Maine's newspapers, government, and historians talk about their former resident moreso than anything else.--User:Namiba 21:09, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Even if Google Scholar was the definitive "proper metric", which is iffy, the latter number is 246. Even if WP catered to local historians (it doesn't), Maine's newspapers also more frequently refer to him as Owen Brewster (using your time period, 119 vs. 70), and it's hardly as if the preeminent Maine historians are united one way or the other (Chris Potholm refers to him as Owen Brewster in The Splendid Game and in person.). Star Garnet (talk) 00:00, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]