Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Melheim

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was delete. ugen64 03:28, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Melheim

Norwegian surname. Seems non-notable, though I doubt even notable surnames should have articles. Xezbeth 18:14, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

• Keep - A bit "Left field" but we should keep it. Brookie 19:42, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Why? Is it useful to anyone? Could it be expanded? Probably not. Grue 07:09, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete or transwiki (if Wiktionary accepts names). Names as such belong in a dictionary, not in an encyclopedia. / Uppland 21:09, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Tentative Keep. I sharply disagree with the presumption made in this nomination. Surnames that are shared by a significant number of people and that derive from a historical basis are inherently notable. My vote in this case is tentative because I do not know the popularity of this surname, which only gets about 9,000 google hits compared with over 70 million for Johnson, 5.4 million for Lorenzo, over 3 million for Alvarez, and over 2.2 million for Callahan. -- 8^D ^gab 22:20, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)
  • I doubt this is a very common name, but it belongs to a very common type of name in Norway: names taken after farms. Probably every farm in Norway has some family bearing its name. / Uppland 09:28, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd say 9000 is a very low Google score for a surname. Grue 07:09, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Transwiki to Wiktionary. Names qua names (as opposed to names of specific individuals) do not belong on Wikipedia. (Except mine, of course, which also gets 124 million google hits.) But Wiktionary has an appendix of surnames. --Angr/_(comhrá) 08:58, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: There is absolutely nothing special about this name. Keeping this opens up the possibility of having an article on every single family name in the world in Wikipedia. Do we want that? Is that a reasonable policy? / Uppland 18:18, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Comment - I reiterate that common surnames are notable and encyclopedic. See Zhang (which happens to be among the world's most common). I personally think every name on the U.S. Census list of common names[1] should have an article, and I intend to start with Smith (surname) and work my way down, doing one every other day for the next ten years or so. -- 8^D ^gab 18:45, 2005 Apr 2 (UTC)
  • Is there a reason they belong in wikipedia and not wiktionary? Kappa 22:06, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Read the Zhang and Smith (surname) articles - how are those not encyclopedic? -- 8^D ^gab 18:38, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)
      • These articles are informative. This article is useless. Grue 07:09, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • Upon further research, I concede that this article refers to a surname that lacks notability, and change my vote to delete - however, I maintain that any surname reaching into the hundreds of thousands is notable and encyclopedic. Also, I'd point out that an article on a single surname can cover many smaller branches (e.g. Smith, which also covers Smithson, Smythe, Schmidt, Goldsmith, etc.). If Melheim is one of many branches of a more popular surname, I'll write an article on that surname and note this as a branch. -- 8^D ^gab 04:05, 2005 Apr 5 (UTC)
          • An article on Norwegian onomastics (which would be completely legitimate) could include more on what I mentioned above (on this being a common type of name). It could obviously use Melheim as an example, except that it is a non-notable one; I am sure better known names of the same type could be dug up to examplify. Generally speaking, the origin of many names is self-explanatory: Abramson for instance, presumably comes from some ancestor named Abra[ha]m and would be more suitable as one example in an article on surnames derived from patronymics, rather than as object of an article in itself. / Uppland 05:21, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
            • Avram the grocer, actually - in Tsibili, about 300 years ago - which then became Avramovitch, and then Avramovitz before turning into Abramson when they got to the other side of the Atlantic. I note, however, that even patronymics have a history, since the father's name must have originated from somewhere (and even Biblical names have prior etymology). But I agree that a general article would cover it, and would suggest a single article pointing out all the name variations that derive from words identifying a farm. -- 8^D ^gab 08:09, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)
• Please delete this surname-cruft. I'd rather have articles on the first names, they're more interesting and shared by more people. Grue 07:05, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, Wikipedia is not a genealogy database. Radiant_* 11:31, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.