Talk:Gabriel Bethlen
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[edit] Convention for Naming Places
The Wikipedia conventions are still being discussed, but for an article such as this (referring to a particular period in history), I believe that we should use the place names most commonly used in English-language sources (encyclopaedias, history books) when referrring to that period of history. Thus Pressburg (rather than Bratislava) and Klausenberg (rather than Cluj-Napoca). Also Peace of Nikolsburg (rather than Mikulov). Links, of course, should be to the official modern names of the cities. Scott Moore 16:20, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In my opinion, the only "correct" solution is to use the current name (unless the town was renamed like Bratislava), especially when there are several language versions and the current version was already used at that time. English texts use German names in this particular case, because some 100 years ago the English authors used German texts as their primary source (because the number of English people understanding Hungarian, Czech etc. texts was much lower) - so this is not a tradition, but a "technical problem". The general problem with the use of names like Nikolsburg is that everybody (and poeple do not normally follow all links in a text)immediately thinks that the town is in present-day Austria or Germany, which is misleading. For example I have spoken to an Italian professor in Austria who could not believe when I told him that Pressburg was Bratislava - he said he always thought that Pressburg was a town in Austria... But that's just my opinion...Juro 16:35, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I agree that using the current (official) name is "best practice", though I'm not sure that it is common practice among (still largely monolingual) English writers (and thus current official names may be unfamiliar to most readers - e.g many English speakers will not be familiar with Venezia, Firenze, Zaragoza, München, Köln, Praha etc). You have a good point, so for Wikipedia using a form such as Pressburg (Bratislava) [or Bratislava (Pressburg)] may solve the problems. Probably the most important thing is consistency. Scott Moore 17:37, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
