Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish)

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[proposed template/categorisation:]
{{Wikipedia subcat guideline|naming conventions|Swedish}}

[proposed "in a nutshell" template:]

This naming convention in a nutshell This naming convention in a nutshell:
Names of Swedish persons, places,... are usually spelled the same way in English as in Swedish. Alphabetic ordering (e.g. in categories), however, doesn't take account of special Swedish characters, and reads them as if they were plain A/a/O/o's.

[proposed] Convention: When writing a name of Swedish origin in Wikipedia:

  • Use Å / å, Ä / ä, and Ö / ö as in the original language;
  • When making a page with a page name containing these letters, also make a redirect page from the same name, but with Å and Ä replaced by A, å and ä by a, Ö by O, and ö by o;
  • Use these variants with plain A / a and O / o as category sort key
  • Also if ordering a list alphabetically Å / å, Ä / ä, and Ö / ö are read as if they were plain A / a / O / o.

[edit] Scope

This guideline applies for names originating in (modern) Swedish language, not to, for example, names in Finnish language (even if the person lives in Sweden), nor to, for example, the name of a person that has Swedish ancestry but always lived in a country where Swedish is no official language.

General Naming conventions principle

The present Naming conventions guideline on Swedish names does not supersede the general naming conventions principle, that is formulated as follows:

Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

In this context the pre-combined  ̈ and  ͦ signs are not seen as disturbing recognisability.

Non-Swedish names commonly used in English

If a (historic) Swedish name is usually "translated" to English or some other language when used in English context, that common translation will be used in English Wikipedia, preferably with a redirect from the Swedish spelling. This may be the case for some monarchs and/or Swedish persons that lived abroad for part of their lives, or for some other reason are generally associated with another country or language, or acquired notability in the English-speaking world by a non-Swedish name (for example, Carolus Linnaeus; all the kings and queens, several other medieval figures such as bishops and saints, the House of Vasa, and several members of that dynasty).

Mythology topics

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Norse mythology) only applies to (Old) Norse mythology, and has no effect whatsoever on names in (modern) Swedish language, when used in Wikipedia: for these Swedish names only the present guideline applies.

General diacritics-related guidelines

[proposed:] Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) is superseded by this "Swedish" naming conventions guideline (that is: for names originating in (modern) Swedish language).

[edit] Rationale

Comparing to other encyclopedic resources
  • Online version of Encyclopædia Britannica: 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..)
  • Encarta: 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 Swedish names without swedish characters.
  • Also the printed edition of Britannica (1984) spells Dag Hammarskjöld, Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, Pär Lagerkvist and Selma Lagerlöf.
  • Britannica 1984 printed edition, however, puts in alphabetical order as if Å and Ä were A, å and ä were a, Ö were O, and ö were o.
Comparing to established practice in Wikipedia

With the exception of hockey players that were (temporarily) renamed to diacritic-less spelling (see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey)), below is a list of Swedes with the specific Swedish characters in their name. All these have their articles spelled with the Swedish characters in Wikipedia (most have redirects from the diacritic-less variants also): 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.

Does the Common names principle apply?

Most commonly used will be different from name to name:

The only conclusion that can be drawn from these google searches is that names with the typical Swedish letters are fairly well spread in English (also acknowledging that internet has a bias towards diacritic-less letters), so that a general use of original Swedish letters in Wikipedia seems justified (or at least: not going against widespread conventions).

[edit] Related policies and guidelines

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