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Article title

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This author is known by various different names in English:

  • Daughter of Takasue
  • Daughter of Takasue Sugawara
  • Daughter of Sugawara Takasue
  • Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue
  • Takasue's Daughter
  • Takasue Sugawara's Daughter
  • Sugawara Takasue's Daughter
  • Sugawara no Takasue's Daughter

Is really the Japanese version Sugawara no Takasue no musume the most common name in English? Maybe this article should be moved to one of the other name variants instead? At least they should redirect here... (212.247.11.156 (talk) 17:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC))[reply]

The most common name in English, in my experience, is Lady Sarashina. I have a collection of Heian and Kamakura-era literature approaching 200 books, and I've always heard her referred to as "Lady Sarashina." She may well be popularized as something else in Japanese, however. Tabbycatlove (talk) 19:07, 5 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 1

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus for move to requested name at this time. Miniapolis 22:12, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Sugawara no Takasue no musume → Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue – I'm honestly not sure about this one. Since the redirect doesn't already exist I could just move it myself and I don't think I would be challenged, but I'm not sure. I actually haven't read that much about this topic in English. I know Sugawara no Takasue no Musume (菅原孝標女) is her common name in Japanese, but why shouldn't we translate "Musume" in this context, since it isn't her name, it's just the word for "daughter". I'm pretty sure Tyler's introduction to his Genji translation is the most widely-read modern English work that discusses her, and while it's been the better part of a decade since I read it I don't think he called her "Sugawara no Takasue no musume". I'm not interested in taking either side in a debate on this issue, but I'd open a discussion. elvenscout742 (talk) 13:08, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looking around, I think "Lady Sarashina" is the name in most common use, most likely because it's what Ivan Morris used in his translation of the Sarashina Nikki (which I think is still the most common one?). There are a fair number (but fewer) uses of "Takasue's daughter", but usually as a descriptor, not a name (hence the lower case d). Cckerberos (talk) 17:44, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thing is, though, if we give a name that has no actual Japanese equivalent and was made up by a translator as the title of the article, we are then stuck explaining that in Japanese she is always known as 菅原孝標女Sugawara no Takasue no musume which translates as "the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue" in the opening sentence. There's nothing wrong with that, but "no Musume" and "Daughter of" both seem more official. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support "Lady Sarashina." It's certainly her most common English-language name. The title should be in the format of a name if that's possible. "Daughter of Sugawara Takasue" is an option as well. See Britannica. Takasue is not notable for anything aside from being the subject's father. Kauffner (talk) 20:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's not her name, though. Why do you think Sugawara no Takasue is not notable? You know he was also the great-grandson of the much more famous writer/GOD Sugawara no Michizane. And why do you insist on misspelling his name? Maybe you should suggest Japanese Wikipedia delete their article on him? Anyway, she has been discussed as "the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue" in plenty of sources for this to be a recognizable name. You need some evidence that she is primarily known by the made-up name "Lady Sarashina" in English. But I'm getting about 70,000 hits for "Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue" and less than 10,000 for "Lady Sarashina". ("Daughter of Sugawara Takasue", without the appropriate "no", gets 90 hits.) Where is the evidence that the made-up name "Lady Sarashina" is her most common name in English? elvenscout742 (talk) 07:23, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since we don't know what her real name might have been, whatever name we use is made up. I get 587 (17 pages deghosted) post-1990 English-language GBooks hits for "Lady Sarashina," 224 (6 pages) for "Sugawara no Takasue no musume", 79 (3 pages) for "Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue", and 72 (3 pages) for "Daughter of Sugawara Takasue". As for Takasue himself, "nothing is known about his life," according to Japan Encyclopedia. Kauffner (talk) 08:27, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sugawara no Takasue no Musume or some English translation is how she has been referred to in the vast majority of literature from the eleventh century until the present time. "Lady Sarashina" is a name that has apparently been made up by western scholars within the past few decades. I have been unable to track the source because NONE of the books I regularly use in my studies refer to her by this name, but Keene 1999 and Shirane 2012 are two that I have on hand that specifically prefer "Daughter of Takasue". In fact if we search for THAT name we get 222 results and "Takasue's Daughter" got 472.[1][2] The fact is that some variant of "Daughter of Takasue" should be used, because your GBooks search only indicates that "Lady Sarashina" is more common than two possible variants of that name, not that it is overwhelmingly more common than her actual designation. You would probably have a better case for renaming the Murasaki Shikibu article to Lady Murasaki, since at least there several high-profile translations prominently refer to her as "Lady Murasaki". Can you tell me what is the most prominent work that refers to Takasue's Daughter as "Lady Sarashina" so we can compare ... umm ... Amazon sales rankings and see whether it is actually as widely read as Keene or Shirane?? elvenscout742 (talk) 00:00, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Daughter of Takasue", per [http://www.amazon.com/Anthology-Japanese-Literature-Mid-Nineteenth-Representative/dp/0802150586/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8 Keene] and [http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Genji-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/014243714X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8 Tyler], is fine with me. I get 163 post-1990 English-language GBook hits for "Daughter of Takasue", plus 334 for "Takasue's daughter". So the total is almost as many as for "Lady Sarashina" (497-587), or more if you count the 151 hits for "Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue" and "Daughter of Sugawara Takasue" given above. Keene has a sells rank of 125,691, while Shirane is ranked [http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Japanese-Literature-Beginnings-Translations/dp/0231157312/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8 1,608,533]. That compares to [http://www.amazon.com/Crossed-Bridge-Dreams-Recollections-11th-Century/dp/0140442820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8 294,195] for Morris, who uses "Lady Sarashina". Kauffner (talk) 08:31, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We both forgot to mention the earlier editions of both [http://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Heart-Japanese-Literature-Sixteenth/dp/0805019995/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360826837&sr=1-1&keywords=Seeds+in+the+Heart+Keene Keene] and [http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Japanese-Literature-Beginnings-Translations/dp/0231136978/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360826702&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Traditional+Japanese+Literature%3A+An+Anthology%2C+Beginnings+to+1600%2C+Abridged+Edition+%28Translations+from+the+Asian+Classics%29 Shirane]: in the latter case the sales rank is higher than the later edition. (Also [http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Japanese-Literature-Beginnings-Translations/dp/023113696X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360826912&sr=1-1&keywords=Traditional+Japanese+Literature+Shirane Shirane hardcover].) But none of these rankings actually demonstrate how many people have read the respective books, since we only have relative rankings rather than specific sales figures, and all of the rankings (like those for [[Tales of Moonlight and Rain) are rather low. This is why I don't like judging popular consensus based on Amazon sales rankings. The reason this page should not be moved to Lady Sarashina is not that certain books sell better on Amazon, but that Morris invented the name and hardly anyone else uses it. Anyway, it's reasonable to add up the numbers for all possible variants of "Sugawara no Takasue no musume" and compare them with the numbers for "Lady Sarashina".
Now to decide which variant of "Sugawara no Takasue no musume" we use. I would personally prefer The Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue, since that is how she would be referred to in the text if I were writing it. However, the "The" in the title is definitely a bad idea, and Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue just sounds a little odd. I'm leaning in favour of including her father's full name, since regardless of what her name might have been she was a member of the Sugawara clan. Therefore, how about Sugawara no Takasue's daughter? (Someone said over on WPJ that if it isn't translated then "Musume" should be capitalized, but I don't think the same applies to "daughter".)
elvenscout742 (talk) 07:40, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Hardly anyone else uses" Lady Sarashina seems a strange conclusion to draw after quoting 222 Google Books hits for "Daughter of Takasue" and 472 for "Takasue's Daughter"... when "Lady Sarashina" gets 856. The Lady Murasaki/Murasaki Shikibu comparison would be better if you could show that "Lady Murasaki" was actually more common (which I don't think it is). Anyway, you might not like the name because you consider it arbitrary/artificial and you can certainly reject it on those grounds, but I don't think you can claim it's obscure. Sugawara no Takasue's daughter sounds pretty dreadful to me (and actually is a name hardy used by anyone). Daughter of Takasue sounds much better, IMHO. Also, is there actually enough known about her for both this article and Sarashina Nikki to exist as separate, stand alone articles? Cckerberos (talk) 14:47, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I honestly don't care about improving the Lady Murasaki comparison because I would be firmly opposed to any such move were it to be proposed. "Lady Sarashina", when compared with all the minor variations on "Daughter of Takasue" combined is obscure. I actually agree with you on "Daughter of Takasue", BTW. Maybe we should scrap this RM and open a discussion as to what the page actually SHOULD be moved to? Anyway, I am beginning to lose faith in GBooks searches: a lot of these searches seem to bring up hits that should have been in the opposite search. "Lady Murasaki" -"Murasaki Shikibu" actually brings up at least one hit that is the same as "Murasaki Shikibu" -"Lady Murasaki". I don't know about what is known about her, from contemporary documents, but Fujiwara no Teika wrote a good bit about her, and she has been discussed in numerous later works. I would guess it is mostly theorizing, but she is certainly notable enough to have her own article. If we were to merge this one based on this reasoning, then we would probably have to merge virtually all articles on Japanese literary figures from the fifth to the twelfth centuries, and probably most people from much later too. elvenscout742 (talk) 02:03, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm basically asking is, can this article ever become more than a stub reproducing text already included in the Sarashina Nikki article? Theorizing by academics (past or present) or local legends is fine, as long as there's something, you know? Otherwise, it's pretty much the definition of an article that should be merged. The only other early Japanese literary figure I can think of in the same situation (almost nothing known about her apart from one famous work of literature which already has an fair-sized article) is Michitsuna's Mother. Cckerberos (talk) 05:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Hamamatsu Chūnagon Monogatari is another work that is traditionally/often attributed to her, and Yoru no Nezame is another. Completely forgot about those until I checked ja.wiki. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:06, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I also remembered why I preferred "Takasue's daughter" to "Daughter of Takasue": "Daughter of Takasue", without "The" before it, just feels kinda awkward. It's not a serious problem, and if you could show me the guideline or a similar article that provides a precedent, I don't really mind. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:09, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just noticed: Britannica has an obvious mistake in it. Well, not necessarily a mistake. But hardly anyone in Japan calls her father "Sugawara Takasue". I can't find the specific guideline in MOSJ, but convention on English Wikipedia is definitely to use "no". elvenscout742 (talk) 07:44, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Lady Sarashina" and "Daughter of Takasue" are equally satisfactory to me. I wouldn't want the title to be longer or more awkward than that. Biography articles generally have titles that are recognizable as personal names. Every name were created by somebody. That the name "Lady Sarashina" is the invention of a translator need not be of great concern. Kauffner (talk) 12:15, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just found Kamo no Yasunori no musume. This article should probably have been included in a multi-move, as it has the exact same problem. Brainfart on my part, and I apologize. elvenscout742 (talk) 05:57, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 2

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 18:00, 4 March 2013 (UTC) (non-admin closure)[reply]

Sugawara no Takasue no musume → Takasue's Daughter – Sorry to open a new one right after the last one closed, but the reason there was no consensus was because I had only meant to open a discussion to establish which new title would be best. The "proposed" title was a place-holder. No one expressed any problems with the new proposed title, and GBooks appears to support it.[3][4][5][6] If anyone has a problem with the capitalization of "Daughter" (GBooks doesn't distinguish), we can discuss it here. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:32, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
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