Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English-language sources): Difference between revisions

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== Russian names ==

I find it unacceptable that we're using different ways of romanizing Russian, depending on what's the most common name in English-language reputable sources. We should choose one romanization and stick to it on the entirety of Wikipedia. [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]] was a Russian, and in Russian you currently spell the name Пётр Ильич Чайковский. That's Cyrillic last time I checked, an alphabet that isn't used for writing English. Any romanization is a means to an end, a way of representing Пётр Ильич Чайковский, so who cares how it's spelled? On Dutch Wikipedia, he's called ''Pjotr Iljitsj Tsjaikovski'', and I'm pretty sure that they're using the same romanization everywhere.

According to [[Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian]], we should spell his name ''Pyotr Ilyich Chaykovsky'' (Ilyich with a ''y'', right? It's sounded as a consonant after all), without the useless ''t'' at the beginning of the surname, and with ''i'' representing only the [[close front unrounded vowel]] (or the [[close central unrounded vowel]], when immediately following the hard {{IPA|/r/}}), rather than both that and a postvocalic [[palatal approximant]].

English spelling is a pile of illogical and unnecessary rules and we don't have to add to it by using fifty different romanizations just because they're the most common spelling in the English literature. In Russia certainly, people stick to one romanization in any given context (an encyclopedia is "one context", no?) and I don't think that they have any emotional reaction to their name being transliterated differently. English readers, on the other hand, might react to ''Chaykovsky'' with "oh my god, you can't spell!", which is not only not true (the surname is spelled Чайковский in Russian, in a different alphabet altogether) but not our problem anyway. We should treat our readers as adults, not as children who need to be catered to to that extent. People accusing others of not being able to spell should know that this isn't an English word and that there are multiple ways of transcribing Russian names. Plus, [[Chaykovsky, Perm Krai]] is spelled "Chaykovsky" and the discrepancy is ''infuriating'' to me. It's the same word! Not only that, the town was named after Tchaikovsky himself! Argh! This is so stupid.

I'm not advocating for using any particular romanization (though [[WP:RUS]] is more than fine in my opinion) but for consistency, also in the case of other languages that aren't written in the Latin alphabet. The current situation is ridiculous, especially given the fact how easy it is to create a redirect.

So, long story short, let's use one type of romanization of Russian on Wikipedia, create redirects for those names that are at odds with the romanization of our choice (whatever it'll end up to be) and mention those names in the lede. The English Wikipedia is, AFAICS, alone (at least among major Wikipedias) in how it deals with Russian names and it's time to stop this practice.

If a name of a certain scientific phenomenon was mostly spelled in British English (because of who's written the papers describing it), would we be forced to use the British spelling of the name despite everything? That's the level of unreasonableness we're dealing with here. [[User:Sol505000|Sol505000]] ([[User talk:Sol505000|talk]]) 15:11, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

: For names which have an established translation / transliteration into English, IMHO we should use that, regardless of what some systematic transliteration of Russian would give. For instance, when talking about [[Moscow|the capital of Russia]], we should name it ''Moscow'', not ''Moskva''. Similarly ''[[Saint-Petersburg]]'', not ''Sankt-Peterburg''. The same applies to people's names: ''[[Ivan the Terrible]]'', not ''Ivan Groznyy''; ''[[Peter the Great]]'', not ''Pyotr Velikiy'' or ''Pyotr Pyervyy''.

: Under [[Tchaikovsky (disambiguation)]] that surname is written mostly ''Tchaikovsky'' but also ''Chaikovskij'', ''Tschaikowsky'' and ''Chaykovsky''; under [[Tchaikovsky (surname)]] there are more spellings, but also the following paragraphs at top explaining how they came about:

<blockquote>

'''Tchaikovsky''' and its feminine variant '''Tchaikovskaya''' is a common transliteration (via French language) of the Russian language surname Чайковский. The surname itself is a Russian-language variant of the Polish surname [[Czajkowski (surname)|Czajkowski]], see this page for name origin.

Transliterated spellings in various languages include ''Tschaikowski'' ([[German language|German]]), ''Ciajkovskij'' ([[Italian language|Italian]]), ''Tsjaikovski'' ([[Dutch language|Dutch]]), ''Csajkovszkij'' ([[Hungarian language|Hungarian]]), ''Chaikovski'' ([[Spanish language|Spanish]]), ''Tjajkovskij'' ([[Swedish language|Swedish]]), ''Tsjajkovskij'' ([[Norwegian language|Norwegian]]), ''Čaikovskis'' ([[Latvian language|Latvian]] and [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]]), ''Tchaikovski'' ([[Portuguese language|Portuguese]]), ''Txaikovski'' ([[Catalan language|Catalan]]) and ''Tšaikovski'' ([[Estonian language|Estonian]] and [[Finnish language|Finnish]]).

It has also been rendered as ''Tchaikovski'', ''Chaikovsky'', ''Chaykovsky'', ''Chaikovskiy'', ''Chaykovskiy'', and ''Chaikovskii''. Among [[Slavic languages]] which use the [[Latin alphabet]], it frequently occurs in its [[Polish language|Polish]] version, ''Czajkowski'', or as ''Čajkovskij'' ([[Czech language|Czech]] and [[Slovak language|Slovak]]) and ''Čajkovski'' ([[Slovenian language|Slovenian]], [[Croatian language|Croatian]], [[Bosnian language|Bosnian]]).

The surname as transliterated into other languages may refer to the following persons. For the original, Polish spelling, see [[Czajkowski (surname)]].

</blockquote>

: The composer is probably known in English-speaking media with a certain spelling, which we should respect; the town in the Perm region probably isn't, even if it was named to honour the composer, so we can, and IMHO we should, transliterate its name directly from Cyrillic. — [[User:Tonymec|Tonymec]] ([[User talk:Tonymec|talk]]) 22:14, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

::I agree with @[[User:Tonymec|Tonymec]]. It may be maddening to people who speak Russian, but English's spelling has always been horribly inconsistent, and it's better to follow the sources, which means following the consistent uses in the sources. [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 22:34, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

:::I see there are many opinions about the representation of names written in the cyrillic alphabet. And it looks that many talk of [[Transliteration]] and mean [[Transcription (linguistics)]]. Transliteration is an international way to converse names written in cyrillic into latin regardless of the pronouncation in a certain language (I think mainly based on the Czech alphabet). So '''Ч''' is written ''ch'' in Englisch and ''tsch'' in German, ''cs'' in Hungarian and ''Č'' in Czech (see town [[Chop, Ukraine]]. But if you use the transliteration it is ''Č'' in all languages that use the Latin alphabet. This remark is just to make clear what is talked about (or not).--[[User:Wanfried-Dublin|Wanfried-Dublin]] ([[User talk:Wanfried-Dublin|talk]]) 09:58, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

:::: If I understand what [[User:Wanfried-Dublin|Wanfried-Dublin]] wrote above, when talking about the composer whose native name was Пётр Ильич Чайковский, and limiting ourselves to his family name, ''Ćajkovskij'' (with a capital c-caron initial) would be a transliteration, ''Chaykovski'' would be a transcription, and ''Tchaikovsky'' would be — what? A translation, maybe. So let's rephrase what I said earlier: IMHO, when there is an accepted translation (e.g. ''Moscow'' and not ''Moskva'' for Москва, ''Khrushchev'' and not ''Khrusshoff'' for Хрущёв, etc.), we should use it; if there is no accepted translation, I believe that for Wikpedia a consistent transcription would be appropriate, while in some other documents (maybe a linguists' technical review) a transliteration using some agreed-in-advance lossless convention would be better. For Чайковский (the composer) there is an accepted transltion, ''viz.'' "Tchaikovsky", so let's use that; for Чайковский (the town in the Perm region) there is no accepted translation into English, so we fall back on transcription. I'm not sure exactly how Wikipedia transcribes Russian names from Cyrillic, but I suppose that "Chaykovski, Perm rayon" would not be too far of the mark. The fact that we write differently a person's name and the name of a town which was intentionally given (in Russian) the name of that particular person, is just a quirk of the English language. The Japanese customs about how to pronounce Chinese proper names (and common nouns) based on their hanzi orthography is even more quirky. — [[User:Tonymec|Tonymec]] ([[User talk:Tonymec|talk]]) 11:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

:::::It seems there is some confusion what is meant. Moscow is neither transliteration nor transcription but an [[Exonym]]. As to ''Tchaikovsky'': at least for the national post and railway it was once agreed, to use the French transcription (I am not sure, but I think for other names too). And Tchaikovsky would be the French version.--[[User:Wanfried-Dublin|Wanfried-Dublin]] ([[User talk:Wanfried-Dublin|talk]]) 11:18, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

:::::: I didn't say ''Moscow'' was either a transcription or a transliteration, I said it was a translation, like German ''Moskau'' and French ''Moscou''; similarly, Chinese 中國 (usually transliterated ''zhōngguǒ'' nowadays) and Japanese 中國 (usually transcribed ''chōgoku'') are translated as English ''China'', French ''la Chine'', Russian ''Китай'', and these latter three, which are indeed exonyms, are the translations of that sinogram pair into their respective languages.

:::::: This said, if for place names we must use the French transcripton because French is the international language of the post offices, then there is an established spelling for the Perm-region town, and it is ''Tchaikovsky''. — [[User:Tonymec|Tonymec]] ([[User talk:Tonymec|talk]]) 11:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

::::::: To add some more remarks: I write mainly for the German Wikipedia and there are some rules regarding first exonyms and second how to use the transcription. These rules are generally obeyed so there is less confusion. The main aim is that a reader who has no knowledge of any other language is able to spell the transcribed name as he reads it and that others can understand it (I agree that this is easier in German than in English). 2. as to French: using this as a rule is fine but I doubt it is workable or will ever be obeyed (who is ''Poutine'')? As far as I remember when the Soviet Union ceased to exists all the ''new'' states (Russia, Ukraine, ...) that use the cyrillic spelling agreed to transcribe the names into the French version. This might have been well intented but was never done as English is the language that is most used and understood. From my journeys into Ukraine I know only one example where French is used (railway station in Chop (Tchop)). Whenever a name is shown in the Latin version, it is always the English transcription that is used. Regards.--[[User:Wanfried-Dublin|Wanfried-Dublin]] ([[User talk:Wanfried-Dublin|talk]]) 12:09, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

== women's football clubs ==

There are many articles about non-english women's football clubs named ''xxx (women)'' [[:Category:Women's football clubs in Sweden|see here]]. There also many that instead use the native word for women [[:Category:Women's football clubs in Spain|see here]]. Clubs also have had their names switched back and forth. Per [[WP:TITLECON]] I propose a renaming of all women's football clubs (and categories!) that have the native word for women in the article name but not the club name. [[User:Dutchy45|Dutchy45]] ([[User talk:Dutchy45|talk]]) 16:41, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

== Native names ==