Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Swedish)

Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article

The discussion below has been copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article - 07:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I came to the problem with national alphabet letters in article name. They are commonly used but I have found no mention about them in naming coventions (WP:NAME). The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people. National alphabet is widely used in wikipedia. Examples are Luís de Camões Auguste and Louis Lumière or Karel Čapek. There are redirects from english spelling (Camoes, Lumiere, Capek).

On the other hand, wikiproject ice hockey WP:HOCKEY states rule for ice hockey players that their names should be written in English spelling. Currently some articles are being moved from Czech spelling to the english spelling (for example Patrik Eliáš to Patrick Elias). I object to this as I do not see genaral consensus and it will only lead to moving back and forth. WP:HOCKEY is not wikipedia policy nor guideline. In addition I do not see any reason why ice hockey players should be treated differently than other people.

There is a mention about using the most recognized name in the naming conventions policy. But this does not help in the case of many ice hockey players. It is very likely that for American and Canadian NHL fans the most recognised versions are Jagr, Hasek or Patrick ELias. But these people also played for the Czech republic in the Olympics and there they are known like Jágr, Hašek or Patrik Eliáš.

I would like to find out what is the current consensus about this. -- Jan Smolik 18:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people - incorrect. "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" - Wikipedia:Naming :conventions (common names). Raul654 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I mentioned this in the third article but it does not solve the problem. Americans are familiar with different spelling than Czechs. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, since this is the English Wikipedia, really we should use the name most familiar to English speakers. The policy doesn't say this explicitly, but I believe this is how it's usually interpreted. This is the form that English speakers will recognize most easily. Deco 19:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well it is wikipedia in English but it is read and edited by people from the whole world. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

There was a straw poll about this with regard to place names: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 3#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks. The proposal was that "whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used". It was close, but those who supported the proposal had more votes. Since, articles like Yaoundé have remained in place with no uproar. I would support a similar convention with regard to personal names. — BrianSmithson 19:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm the user who initiated the WP:HOCKEY-based renaming with Alf. The project Player Pages Format Talk page has the discussion we had along with my reasoning, pasted below:

OK, team, it's simple. This is en-wiki. We don't have non-English characters on our keyboards, and people likely to come to en-wiki are mostly going to have ISO-EN keyboards, whether they're US, UK, or Aussie (to name a few) it doesn't matter. I set up a page at User:RasputinAXP/DMRwT for double move redirects with twist and started in on the Czech players that need to be reanglicized.

Myself and others interpret the policy just the same as Deco and BrianSmithson do: the familiar form in English is Jaromir Jagr, not Jaromír Jágr; we can't even type that. Attempting to avoid redirects is pretty tough as well. Is there a better way to build consensus regarding this? RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 19:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you misread my statement above. My stance is that if the native spelling of the name varies from the English spelling only in the use of diacritics, use the native spelling. Thus, the article title should be Yaoundé and not Yaounde. Likewise, use Jōchō, not Jocho. Redirection makes any arguments about accessibility moot, and not using the diacritics makes us look lazy or ignorant. — BrianSmithson 16:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Tentative overview (no cut-and-paste solutions, however):

• Article names for names of people: wikipedia:naming conventions (people) - there's nothing specific about diacritics there (just mentioning this guideline because it is a naming conventions guideline, while there are no "hockey" naming conventions mentioned at wikipedia:naming conventions).
• wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) is about royal & noble people: this is guideline, and *explicitly* mentions that wikipedia:naming conventions (common names) does NOT apply for these kind of people. But makes no difference: doesn't mention anything about diacritics.
• Wikipedia talk:naming conventions (Polish rulers): here we're trying to solve the issue for Polish monarchs (some of which have diacritics in their Polish name): but don't expect to find answers there yet, talks are still going on. Anyway we need to come to a conclusion there too, hopefully soon (but not rushing).
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), early stages of a guideline proposal, I started this on a "blue monday" about a week ago. No guideline yet: the page contains merely a "scope" definition, and a tentative "rationale" section. What the basic principles of the guideline proposal will become I don't know yet (sort of waiting till after the "Polish rulers" issue gets sorted out I suppose...). But if any of you feel like being able to contribute, ultimately it will answer Jan Smolik's question (but I'd definitely advise not to hold your breath on it yet).
• Other:
  • Some people articles with and without diacritics are mentioned at wikipedia talk:naming conventions (use English)#Diacritics, South Slavic languages - some of these after undergoing a WP:RM, but note that isolated examples are *not* the same as a guideline... (if I'd know a formulation of a guideline proposal that could be agreeable to the large majority of Wikipedians, I'd have written it down already...)
  • Talking about Lumiere/Lumière: there's a planet with that name: at a certain moment a few months ago it seemed as if the issue was settled to use the name with accent, but I don't know how that ended, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects, Andrewa said she was going to take the issue there. Didn't check whether they have a final conclusion yet.

Well, that's all I know about (unless you also want to involve non-standard characters, then there's still the wikipedia:naming conventions (þ) guideline proposal) --Francis Schonken 19:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Note that I do not believe no En article should contain diacritics in its title. There are topics for which most English speakers are used to names containing diacritics, such as El Niño. Then there are topics for which the name without diacritics is widely disseminated throughout the English speaking world, like Celine Dion (most English speakers would be confused or surprised to see the proper "Céline Dion"). (Ironically enough, the articles for these don't support my point very well.) Deco 20:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sticking diacritics, particularly the Polish Ł is highly annoying, esp. when applied to Polish monarchs. It just gives editors much more work, and unless you're in Poland or know the code, you will be unable to type the name in the article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 20:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Redirects make the issue of difficulty in visiting or linking to the article immaterial (I know we like to skip redirects, but as long as you watch out for double redirects you're fine). The limitations of our keyboards are not, by themselves, a good reason to exclude any article title. Deco 20:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Deco, I should rephrase what I said. I agree with you that some English articles do require diacritics, like El Niño. Articles like Jaromir Jagr that are lacking diacritics in their English spellings should remain without diacritics because you're only going to find the name printed in any English-speaking paper without diacritics. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 21:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I checked articles about Czech people and in 90 % of cases (rough guess) they are with diacritics in the name of the article. This includes soccer players playing in England (like Vladimír Šmicer, Petr Čech, Milan Baroš). And no one actualy complains. So this seems to be a consensus. The only exception are extremely short stubs that did not receive much input. Articles with Czech diacritics are readable in English, you only need a redirect becouse of problems with typing. This is an international project written in English. It should not fulfill only needs of native English speakers but of all people of the world. --Jan Smolik 22:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Very many names need diacritics to make sense. Petr Cech instead of Petr Čech makes a different impression as a name, does not look half as Czech and is much more likely to be totally mispronounced when you see it. Names with diacritics are also not IMHO such a big problem to use for editors because you can usually go through the redirect in an extra tab and cut and paste the correct title. I also don't see a problem at all in linking through redirects (that's part of what they are there for). Leaving out diacritics only where they are "not particularly useful" would be rather inconsequent. Kusma (討論) 22:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, "Petr Sykora" and "Jaromir Jagr" are not alternate spellings; they are incorrect ones which are only used for technical reasons. Since all other articles about Czech people use proper Czech diacritics, I don't know of any justification for making an exception in case of hockey players. - Mike Rosoft 01:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Man, I feel like the bottom man in a dogpile. Reviewing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), there'sWhat word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? Making the name of the article include diacritics goes against the Use English guideline. The most common input into the search box over here onthe left, for en-wiki, is going to be Jaromir Jagr. Yes, we're supposed to avoid redirects. Yes, in Czech it's not correct. In English, it is correct. I guess I'm done with the discussion. There's no consensus in either direction, but it's going to be pushed back to the diacritic version anyhow. Go ahead and switch them back. I'mnot dead-set against it, but I was trying to follow guidelines. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 15:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are many names, and even words, in dominant English usage that use diacritics. Whether or not these will ever be typed in a search engine, they're still the proper title. However, if English language media presentations of a topic overwhelmingly omit diacritics, then clearly English speakers would be most familiar with the form without diacritics and it should be used as the title on this Wikipedia. This is just common sense, even if it goes against the ad hoc conventions that have arisen. Deco 18:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Czech names: almost all names with diacritics use it also in the title (and all of them have redirect). Adding missing diacritics is automatic behavior of Czech editors when they spot it. So for all practical purposes the policy is set de-facto (for Cz names) and you can't change it. Pavel Vozenilek 03:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech) --Francis Schonken 11:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

and: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) --Francis Schonken 17:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are those among us trying to pull the ignorant North American card. I mentioned the following over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format...

Here's the Czech hockey team in English compliments of the Torino Italy Olympic Committee [1] Here they are in Italian: [2], French: [3]. Here are the rosters from the IIHF (INTERNATIONAL Ice Hockey Federation) based in Switzerland: [4].'

Those examples are straight from 2 international organizations (one based in Italy, one in Switzerland). I'm hard pressed to find any english publication that uses diacritics in hockey player names. I don't see why en.wiki should be setting a precedent otherwise. ccwaters 02:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Over at WP:HOCKEY we have/had 3 forces promoting non-English characters in en.wiki hockey articles: native Finns demanding native spellings of Finnish players, native Czechs demanding native spellings of Czech players, and American stalkers of certain Finnish goaltenders. I did a little research and here are my findings:

Here's a Finnish site profiling NHL players. Here's an "incorrectly" spelt Jagr, but the Finnish and German alphabets both happen to have umlauts so here's a "correct" Olaf Kölzig. Who is Aleksei Jashin?

Here's a Czech article about the recent Montreal-Philadelphia game [5] Good luck finding any Finnish players names spelt "correctly"... here's a snippet from the MON-PHI article:

Flyers však do utkání nastoupili značně oslabeni. K zraněným oporám Peteru Forsbergovi, Keithu Primeauovi, Ericu Desjardinsovi a Kimu Johnssonovi totiž po posledním zápase přibyli také Petr Nedvěd a zadák Chris Therrien.

Well...I recognize Petr Nedvěd, he was born in Czechoslovakia. Who did the Flyers have in goal??? Oh its the Finnish guy, "Antero Niitymakiho".

My point? Different languages spell name differently. I found those sites just by searching yahoo in the respective languages. I admit I don't speak either and therefore I couldn't search thoroughly. If someone with backgrounds in either language can demonstrate patterns of Finnish publications acknowledging Czech characters and visa versa than I may change my stance. ccwaters 03:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I support every word Ccwater said, albeit with not as much conviction. There is a reason why we have Wikipedia in different languages, and although there are few instances in the English uses some sort of extra-curricular lettering (i.e. café), most English speaking people do not use those. Croat Canuck 04:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I must make a strong point that seems to be over-looked: this is not the international English language wikipedia. It is the English language wikipedia. It just so happens that the international communty contributes. There is a reason that there are other language sections to wikipedia, and this is one of them. The finnish section of wikipedia should spell names the Finnish way and the English wikipedia should spell names the English way. The vast majority of english publications drop the foreign characters and diacritics. Why? because they aren't part of the English language, hence the term "foreign characters". Masterhatch 04:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree in every particular with Masterhatch. The NHL's own website and publications do not use diacriticals, nor does any other known English-language source. The absurdity of the racist card is breathtaking: in the same fashion as the Finnish and Czech language Wikipedias follow their own national conventions for nomenclature (the name of the country in which I live is called the "United States" on neither ... should I feel insulted?), the English language Wikipedia reflects the conventions of the various English-speaking nations. In none are diacriticals commonly used. I imagine the natives of the Finnish or Czech language Wikipedias would go berserk if some peeved Anglos barge in and demand they change their customary linguistic usages. I see no reason to change the English language to suit in a similar situation. RGTraynor 06:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized. I intentionaly wrote the names without diacritics. I accept the fact that foreigners do that because they cannot write those letters properly and use them correctly. There are also technical restrictions. I also accepted fact that my US social security card bears name Jan Smolik instead of Jan Smolík. I do not have problem with this. I even sign my posts Jan Smolik. But Wikipedia does not have technical restrictions. I can even type wierd letters as Æ. And it has plenty of editors who are able to write names with diacritics correctly. The name without diacritics is sufficient for normal information but I still think it is wrong. I think that removing diacritics is a step back. Anyway it is true that I am not able to use diacritics in Finish names. But somebody can fix that for me.

I do not care which version will win. But I just felt there was not a clear consensus for the non-diacritics side and this discussion has proven me to be right. As for the notice of Czechs writing names incorectly. We use Inflection of names so that makes writing even more dificult (my name is Smolík but when you want to say we gave it to Smolík you will use form we gave it Smolíkovi). One last argument for diacritics, before I retire from this discussion as I think I said all I wanted to say. Without diacritics you cannot distinguish some names. For example Czech surnames Čapek and Cápek are both Capek. Anyway we also have language purists in the Czech republic. I am not one of them. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized -Fine we'll use the spellings used by the IIHF, IOC, NHLPA, AHL, OHL, WHL, ESPN, TSN, The Hockey News, Sports Illustrated, etc, etc, etc.

This isn't about laziness. Its about using the alphabet afforded to the respective language. We don't refer to Алексей Яшин because the English language doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet. So why should we subject language A to the version of the Latin alphabet used by language B? Especially when B modifies proper names from languages C & D.

My main beef here is that that the use of such characters in en.wiki is a precedent, and not a common practice. If you think the English hockey world should start spelling Czech names natively, than start a campaign amongst Czech hockey players demanding so. It may work: languages constantly infiltrate and influence each other. Wikipedia should take a passive role in such things, and not be an active forum for them. ccwaters 20:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized Great, in which case for Czech Olympic pages, especially on the Czech Wikipedia, spell them as they are done in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, in the NHL-related articles, we'll spell them as per customary English-language usage. RGTraynor 08:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I wish I understood why User:ccwaters has to be rude in his posts on this subject. "Stalkers of Finnish goaltenders" isn't the way I'd describe a Wikipedia contributor. Also, since you asked, Aleksei Jashin is the Finnish translitteration of Alexei Yashin. Russian transliterates differently into Finnish than into English. Of course you must know this, since you have such a habit of lecturing to us on languages. As for diacritics, I object to the idea of dumbing down Wikipedia. There are no technical limitations that stop us from writing Antero Niittymäki instead of Antero Niittymaki. The reason so many hockey publications all over the world don't use Finnish-Scandinavian letters or diacritics is simple laziness, and Wikipedia can do much better. Besides, it isn't accepted translation practice to change the spelling of proper names if they can be easily reproduced and understood, so in my opinion it's simply wrong to do so. Since it seems to be obvious there isn't a consensus on this matter, I think a vote would be in order. Elrith 16:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Alas, a Finnish guy lecturing native English speakers on how they have to write Czech names in English (not to mention the lecturing regarding the laziness) is but a variation on the same theme of rudishness.

So, Elrith, or whomever reads this, if the lecturing is finished, could you maybe devote some attention to the Dvořák/Dvorak problem I mentioned below? I mean, whomever one asks this would not be problematic - but nobody volunteered thus far to get it solved. Am I the only one who experiences this as problematic inconsistency? --Francis Schonken 21:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

So is "Jagr" the Finnish transliteration of "Jágr"??? On that note, the Finnish "Ä" is not an "A" with "funny things" on top (that's an umlaut), its a completely separate letter nonexistent in the English language and is translated to "Æ". "Niittymaki" would be the English transliteration. "Nittymeki" or (more traditionally "Nittymӕki") would be the English transcription.

In the past I've said our friend's contributions were "thorough." I'll leave it at that. There will be nothing else about it from me unless asked. ccwaters 21:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

My opinion on the Dvořák/Dvorak issue is that his name is spelled Dvořák, and that's how the articles should be titled, along with redirects from Dvorak. Similarly, the article on Antero Niittymäki should be called just that, with a redirect from Niittymaki. You're right that it is a problematic inconsistency, and it needs to be fixed.

The only reason I may sound like I'm lecturing is that there are several people contributing to these discussions who don't understand the subject at all. Ccwaters's remarks on transliteration are

one example. It isn't customary or even acceptable to transliterate or transcribe Finnish letters into English; the accepted translation practice is to reproduce them, which is perfectly possible, for example, in Wikipedia. Niittymaki or anything else that isn't Niittymäki isn't a technically correct "translation". The reason North American, or for that matter, Finnish, hockey publications write Jagr instead of Jágr is ignorance and/or laziness. Wikipedia can do better that that.

However, since this discussion has, at least to me, established that there is no consensus on Wikipedia on diacritics and national letters, apart from a previous vote on diacritics, I'm going to continue my hockey edits and use Finnish/Scandinavian letters unless the matter is otherwise resolved. Elrith 04:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Elrith, your new batch of patronising declarations simply doesn't work. Your insights in language (and how language works) seem very limited, resuming all what you don't like about a language to "laziness" and "ignorance".

Seems like we might need an RfC on you, if you continue to oracle like this, especially when your technique seems to consist in calling anyone who doesn't agree with you incompetent.

Re. consensus, I think you would be surprised to see how much things have evolved since the archived poll you speak about. --Francis Schonken 23:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

My 2 cents:

1) This should NOT be setteld as a local consensus for hockey players, this is about how we name persons in the english wikipedia. It is wrong to have a local consensus for hockey players only.

2) I have tried to do some findings on how names are represented, it is wrong to say that since these names are spelled like this normally they should be spelled like this, many wrongs does not make it right. So I did a few checks,

If I look at the online version of Encyclopædia Britannica I get a hit on both Björn Borg and Bjorn Borg, but in the article it is spelled with swedish characters, same for Selma Lagerlöf and Dag Hammarskjöld, I could not find any more swedes in EB :-) (I did not check all..)

I also check for as many swedes as I could think of in wikipedia to see how it is done for none hockey swedes, I found the following swedes by looking at list of swedish ... and adding a few more that I could think of, ALL had their articles spelled with the swedish characters (I'm sure you can find a few that is spelled without the swedish characters but the majority for sure seams to be spelled the same way as in their births certificates). So IF you are proposing that we should 'rename' the swedish hockey players I think we must rename all other swedes also. Do we really think that is correct? I can not check this as easily for other countries but I would guess that it is the same.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Björn Borg, Annika Sörenstam, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Selma Lagerlöf, Stellan Skarsgård,Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Håkan Nesser, Bruno K. Öijer, Björn Ranelid, Fredrik Ström, Edith Södergran, Hjalmar Söderberg, Per Wahlöö, Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wästberg, Isaac Hirsche Grünewald, Tage Åsén, Gösta Bohman, Göran Persson, Björn von Sydow, Lasse Åberg, Helena Bergström, Victor Sjöström, Gunder Hägg, Sigfrid Edström, Anders Gärderud, Henrik Sjöberg, Patrik Sjöberg, Tore Sjöstrand, Arne Åhman, so there seams to be a consensus for non hockey playing swedes? Stefan 13:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I also checked encarta for Björn Borg and Dag Hammarskjöld both have the Swedish characters as the main name of the articles, Selma Lagerlöf is not avaliable unless you pay so I can not check. I'm sure you can find example of the 'wrong' way also, but we can not say that there is consensus in the encyclopedic area of respelling foreign names the 'correct' english way. Stefan 14:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a very constructive step to me. So I'll do the same as I did for Czech, i.e.:

1. start Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish) as a proposal, starting off with the content you bring in here.
2. list that page in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration
3. also list it on wikipedia:current surveys#Discussions
4. list it in the guideline proposal Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)#Specifics_according_to_language_of_origin

OK to work from there? --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Works for me :-) Stefan 00:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Tx for finetuning Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish). I also contributed to further finetuning, but add a small note here to clarify what I did: page names in English wikipedia are in English per WP:UE. Making a Swedish name like Björn Borg English, means that the ö ("character" in Swedish language) is turned into an "o" character with a precombined diacritic mark (unicode: U+00F6, which is the same character used to write the last name of Johann Friedrich Böttger – note that böttger ware, named after this person, uses the same ö according to Webster's, and in that dictionary is sorted between "bottery tree" and "bottine"). Of course (in English!) the discussion whether it is a separate character or an "o" with a diacritic is rather futile *except* for alphabetical ordering: for alphabetical ordering in English wikipedia the ö is treated as if it were an o, hence the remark about the "category sort key" I added to the intro of the "Swedish NC" guideline proposal. In other words, you can't expect English wikipedians who try to find something in an alphabetic list to know in advance (a) what is the language or origin of a word, and (b) if any "special rules" for alphabetical ordering are applicable in that language. That would be putting things on their head. "Bö..." will always be sorted in the same way, whatever the language of origin.

What I mean is that "Björn Borg" (in Swedish) is transcribed/translated/transliterated to "Björn Borg" in English, the only (invisible!) difference being that in Swedish ö is a character, and in English ö is a letter o with a diacritic.

Or (still the same in other words): Ö is always treated the same as "O" in alphabetical ordering, whether it's a letter of Ötzi or of Öijer--Francis Schonken 10:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

For consistency with the rest of Wikipedia, hockey player articles should use non-English alphabet characters if the native spelling uses a Latin-based alphabet (with the exception of naturalized players like Petr Nedved). Why should Dominik Hasek be treated differently than Jaroslav Hašek? Olessi 20:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If we are using other encyclopedias as litmus tests, we don't we look at a few hockey players: Dominik Hasek at Encarta Dominik Hasek at Britannica Jaromir Jagr at Encarta Teemu Selanne in Encarta list of top scorers

Last argument: We use the names that these players are overwhelming known as in the English language. We speak of Bobby Orr, not Robert Orr. Scotty Bowman, not William Scott Bowman. Ken Dryden not Kenneth Dryden. Tony Esposito, not Anthony Esposito. Gordie Howe not Gordon Howe... etc etc, etc. The NHL/NHLPA/media call these players by what they request to be called. Vyacheslav Kozlov used to go by Slava Kozlov. Evgeni Nabokov "americanized" himself for a season as "John Nabokov" but changed his mind again.

ccwaters 22:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Dvořák

Could someone clean this up:

Article/category name without diacritics

Category:Compositions by Antonin Dvorak

Category:Operas by Antonin Dvorak

Cello Concerto (Dvorak)

String Quartet No. 11 (Dvorak)

String Quartet No. 12 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 6 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 8 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 9 (Dvorak)

Violin Concerto (Dvorak)

Page name with diacritics

Antonín Dvořák

List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák

Symphony No. 7 (Dvořák)

I'd do it myself if I only knew which way the wikipedia community wants it... --Francis Schonken 10:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and renamed the articles to use diacritics in the title, since they already use them in the text. I've also slapped {{categoryredirect}} tags on the two categories: a bot should be along shortly to complete the job. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Tx!!! - I'll remove Dvořák as an exception from Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech)#Exceptions --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

lots of info

I'm OK with adding "lots of info", but don't make it "messy", please. --Francis Schonken 14:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, not sure how to go about making a convention, and I'm not easily offended so please make suggestions. But I think we should try to do the arguing first and then have consensus when we do voting, so I'm trying to put up arguments and resoning in the main page now, I'm expecting it to be trimmed down later, e.g. when you confirm the EB does use 'non english' letters. Maybe we should have a todo list on the talk page instead??

Don't worry, we're doing fine making this a convention. My remark was about adding diverse remarks under the "See also" section; and about inserting Google searches that were not really according to established wikipedia standards. But I tried to deal with these problems, among others by moving part of the questions to this talk page.

Please feel free to improve/ammend the guideline proposal. --Francis Schonken 07:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Remarks by Stefan, moved here by Francis:

To consider:

• Both online Encyclopædia Britannica and Encarta list Swedish peopple with their original spelling. (someone please check e.g. Dag Hammarskjöld and Selma Lagerlöf in a paper encyclopedia and see how it is done there, also check if the names is listed with ö if it is sorted as o?)

  • Dag Hammarskjöld (and Hjalmar Hammarskjöld) in Britannica, 1984 printed edition, also Pär Lagerkvist and Selma Lagerlöf. Note that Britannica also puts in alphabetical order as described by me in Village pump (policy) (e.g. the Nordic river "Lågen" before "lagena" and "lager beer" - å is ordered as if it were a plain "a", but written "å") --Francis Schonken 16:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• So the question is do we let 'most common' argument win, or do we use the 'real' spelling and do we do as other encyclopedia does? and what is most common?
• How do we handle the fact that IMHO wikipedia is not a encyclopedia for people in english speaking countries, it is a encyclopedia for everyone written in english. If that is accepted the argument to spell words correctly should have higher precedence than most common. Stefan sometime 22 February

Further, I don't know what is meant by the "Old Norse" exception (which I put in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish)#Exceptions and reformulated) - even after reformulating I don't know exactly what it is meant to signify. --Francis Schonken 15:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

There is a Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Norse mythology) which basically states use english letter, BUT the rational for this is because this have been done in literature for a long time so that Naming convention can not be used as and argument against this (proposed convention). Not sure if that made sense, just trying to put in text in teh proposal so that it is hard to argue against. Stefan 03:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Norse mythology NC is only about Norse mythology - Being no Swede myself I have no idea if there is any Swedish mythology, and if there is, whether there would be any correlation of that mythology to Norse mythology. If that is not the case I wouldn't worry about the Norse mythology NC, it has no effect whatsoever on the Swedish NC we're building now.

Another question is whether in Swedish any other characters outside the A-Z/a-z range, apart from Å / å, Ä / ä, and Ö / ö are used? For instance if the thorn character (Þ/þ) is used in (old/modern) Swedish, also the Norse mythology NC doesn't apply, rather look at that other NC proposal I'm working on: wikipedia:naming conventions (thorn). --Francis Schonken 07:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

No, no other characters are used. The reson I bring Norse Mythology up is that I want to make it clear WHY it does not apply so that people can not vote against or argue using it as an example, there really is no overlap, I'm just afraid that poeple would use it as a reson to say no to this proposal. See Old_Norse_language first sentense "Old Norse is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300." So it is basically old Swedish, or what have evolved into all the scandinavian languages today (except finnish which is a totally different beast), so I do not want anyone using that policy to argue that this should use the same, since it is not the same, Old Norse is not written like that today while swedish is using its 'funny' chracters, and therefore that policy should be separate from this. Stefan 10:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the additional info (and sorry for my ignorance on [Old] Norse/Swedish/Finnish topics). Wouldn't be too difficult to put that in the guideline proposal in a way that others who, like me, are not very accustomed to the finer points of these languages are not led astray. --Francis Schonken 10:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

A minor addition: Swedish uses some accents – I can only think of "é" in armé for the moment – they are rare and exists only in words borrowed from French and some family names. These are not counted as a part of the Swedish alphabet unlike å, ä and ö. Jeltz talk 23:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

How about the somewhat known surname Klüft? Should it be Klüft, Kluft or Klyft? Hdw 13:23, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation

The suggested convention is probably good, as it seems to follow what is common practise. However one thing has to be kept in mind, namely that it will give the reader the erroneous impression that names/words with ö/ø is pronounced as o, ä as a etc. (at least that is my impression of how English read Scandinavian names). It would therefore probably be a good idea to add something stating the importance to write out the phonetics to the guideline. Gunnar Larsson 18:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation info in the article text is no object of the naming conventions series of guidelines, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)#Foreign names instead - if you think that Swedish names should in this respect be treated differently than e.g. Spanish names, please voice your suggestions on the talk page of that MoS guideline. --Francis Schonken 19:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Move up to Naming Convention

I suppose there are no further problems to move this up from {{proposed}} to {{wikipedia subcat guideline}}. --Francis Schonken 07:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This proposed guideline cuts across a lot of project areas and other guidelines. I strongly object to it becoming a guideline without consensus to do so. I see no indication there that there is a widespread community consensus on this isue. I think you need to advertise this widely and run a strawpoll before you change it into a guideline. The page has had only 1 editor and that is hardly enough of a consensus to create a guidline which had an impact on a number of artcles in different areas of en.wikipedia. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Before this can be put up as a guideline it would surely be a good idea it there was shown to be some sort of a consensus for it. That's more or less what the text of the guideline template says. Stefán Ingi 14:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

What's the point of having a special guideline for Swedish, and Swedish people only? Why not make it, say, a convention for nordic names (names using ä, ö, å, etc). This way we wouldn't need to make a new convention for Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, and Icelandic people. All of these use ä, ö and å in their alphabets as letters (not diacritics). --HJV 22:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree, but since I do not speak either of those, I did not dare to give examples in the debate that was very heated, therefore I wrote only about Swedish in my comment, please add rationale for all nordic languages. Stefan 02:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

This convention applies very well to Finnish names as well. I am not aware of any high quality textbook that leaves the letters ä, ö and å out when writing about Finnish names. --Jannex 16:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It should apply for Finnish, Danish and Norwegian, but since I do not speak any of those I do not want to write about them, if you do, please add to the Rationale section with you equivalent comparisons. Although if so we should rename the page ... nevermind do that later. Stefan 02:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

And it also applies very well to Norwegian. I would like to refer to my rant at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Fresh meat arriving for some views on the topic. As for the common name principle referenced on this project page, I will again use Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson as my example. With the Ø's, there are 113,000 Google hits, with O's instead you're down to almost 1\3 of that - 40,600. English pages only, -wikipedia -other variant yields 15,900 with Ø's, 13,300 with O's.--TVPR 17:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I support this proposal. As an English speaker who has studied Swedish, I would consider it wrong to spell a name without the proper letters, and I would be confused. In Swedish, a and å are separate letters despite their similarity, like O and Q. Obviously, where an established English transliteration exists, that should be preferred (eg., Gothenburg for Göteborg), but this is rare. I think it ought to include the rest of the Scandinavian languages, too. OneVeryBadMan 10:39, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this proposal for a number of reasons.

1. It directly contradicts a policy found here Wikipedia:Naming conventions "Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form." In the vast majority of cases, diacritics are the least common form in English.

2. It directly contradicts a guideline found here Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) "If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works." Again, the most common form (in the vast majority of English publications) does not include diacritics.

3. It directly contradicts two other proposals Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format#Use of diacritics and non-English characters

To me, at least, it makes sense to use the most common form in English. There are cases in English that the most common form includes accents and diacritics, but most of the time, they are omitted. I would agree with this proposed naming convention if it were reworded to say that when, in English, the most common form of a name (or place or whatever) includes the use of diacritics, then wikipedia will reflect that for swedish names. I don't have a problem for a separate naming convention for Swedish, as there are other languages that have their own naming conventions, but it can't contradict other policies and guidelines and it definately can't contradict what is most common in English (as this is the English language section of wikipedia and not the Swedish or international section). Masterhatch 18:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Even if I'm a native Swede and abhors the 'broken' look of Lidstrom, Naslund and Norstrom there is good reason to use the 'ugly' names. The native spelling should of course be noted at the top of the article but the english spelling should be used so people can find what they look for (and there should of course be a redirect page from the native spelling).

The problem really is that Ö isn't an O with funny dots, it's an O-E ligature, from OE to Œ to Ø (and in swedish to Ö). So 'proper translitteration should be Lidstroem, Naeslund and Norstroem. However, since this isn't used, and many regard Malmoe to be as ugly as Malmo we are stuck with stripping 'the funny dots and rings.

I grudgingly and under protest accept the idea that a english speaking user using the english language wiki should be able to search, both in the wiki and on pages, for 'Lidstrom' and expect to find it. Hdw 13:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Further discussion

The debate has continued here Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Finnish). Masterhatch 16:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

No longer needed and confirmed in WP:UE

Since the addition of "If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works." in WP:UE this conventions seams to be confirmed (and not needed any more). Stefan 21:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC)