Talk:List of monarchs by nickname

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[edit] Criterion for split

What exactly is the criterion for deciding whether a nickname goes in the "Surnames" section or in the "Nicknames" section? I occasionally get confused. Thanks, --MarkSweep 00:28, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Surnames are usually put with the definite article "the." Nicknames aren't. Neutralitytalk 02:30, May 14, 2005 (UTC)
They're not really surnames, though, are they? I know Monty Python did a sketch about Mr. and Mrs. Atilla The Hun, but even so... sjorford →•← 13:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This seems to be an arbitrary distinction. Where is it defined that a sobriquet using a definite article is a surname and one without is a nickname? Also, it isn't a cnsistent distinction, especially when dealing with non-English monarchs. Take Louis XIV, the Sun King, le Roi Soleil, down in "nicknames". And where would you put Ladislaus Posthumus of Bohemia and Hungary? He's Ladislaus the Posthumous in English, but Ladislaus Posthumus in German and Ladislav Pohborek (sp?) in Czech. Vlad the Impaler is Vlad Tepeş in Romanian. "Ætheling" as in "Edgar Ætheling" is itself a nickname, not part of his name. Ethelred the Unready is more properly Æþelred Unræd, or "Ethelred without-counsel".

I say, get rid of the subheadings, and arrange all the nicknames alphabetically (ignoring articles like "the" or prepositions like "of"): so "Beauclerc" would go between "The Battler" and "The Beautiful".SigPig 04:10, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

IF the subheadings stay, anyway the term "surname" is incorrect and must be replaced by something more reasonable. Such as sobriquet, or (again) nickname. Arrigo 17:59, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New criterion & subheadings

The other option is to split it along the following lines:

  • "cognomen": names added to the monarch's name, similar to the Roman victory titles. Thus, Vlad the Impaler, Henry Beauclerc, Mary Queen of Scots.
  • "sobriquets": names used as a substitute for the monarch's name: The Universal Spider for Louis XI, Mrs Brown for Victoria, Little Boots for Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus.

I used sobriquet based on the entry in Fowler's Modern English Usage: it is used where one name is substituted for the other; it gives as an example "The Eternal City" for Rome. I used cognomen based on the articles on Roman naming convention and Victory titles, which clearly have the nickname tacked on (e.g. Scipio Africanus). SigPig 03:22, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "The elder" doesn't belong.

The epithets "the elder" and "the younger" aren't nicknames - they're ordinals, like "junior" and "senior" or the roman "major" and "minor". I don't see how they belong. Should everyone known as "the third" and so on be included as well? --BluePlatypus 18:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

They are sometimes epithets. Louis VII of France was "Louis the Younger." john k 19:43, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Criterion for inclusion

Is it a list of Monarchs, or for monarchs and other royalty and nobility? Can we include counts and dukes? There's another list at Nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility that could be merged here, but maybe the page title has to be changed (List of nobility by nickname?). Piet 13:50, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Dukes, Counts, et al, who actually acted as secular rulers of discrete territories can be considered as "Monarchs," I think. The Dukes of Burgundy, for instance, were clearly monarchs, even if also vassals of the Kings of France and the Holy Roman Emperors. john k 15:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The page is already flagged as being "larger than is desirable". If there are any monarchs or rulers in the other article that can be brought in, then perhaps we can do so. However, if we start adding everybody in a royal family, or who held a title, etc, perhaps it could get unwieldy. How about routing those persons into List of nicknames of historical personages, like with Otto von Bismarck? SigPig 21:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually I'm not sure if "larger than desirable" also holds for a list. I feel it's better to have one long list including everyone. The lists are for looking up things, and it's easier to look in one list than in two. My phonebook is a lot longer than 30K but I can still use it :) And to put Alfonso the Good in a different list from Philip the Good because one is a king and the other a duke seems to be making things difficult. Speaking of which, why is Philip the Good not in the list? But let's sort this thing out first. Piet 21:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

"Larger than desirable," doesn't apply for a list. I'm not even sure it really applies to articles anymore, except as a vague guideline. I agree with Piet that it seems silly to have the Duke of Burgundy in a separate list from the King of Aragon, or whatever. john k 22:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The only reason that Philip the Good is not here is that he's merely been overlooked. As it stands, if you actually read the list, it's actually got quite a lot of dukes (including Burgundy), archdukes, and voivodes among the kings, queens, and emperors.
And I'm withdrawing my earlier statement. I see that Wills and Harry of Wales, as well as the Duchess of Pork (all non-monarchs) have already made the list. BTW, the original distinction was made when this list was created by whomever. I just went with the original flow when I started putting in my two sovereigns' worth. So if nobody thinks this will become too unwieldy, then maybe we should merge. But just a question: Should we make any distinction between a ruler in their own right (king or otherwise) and a person who was styled "prince" or "grand poobah" or some such because s/he was the issue of the king/queen (like Wills)?, I mean, include them, but annotate with an asterisk or a smiley or some such. SigPig 01:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I think everyone who is notable enough to have their own article can go in the list; which also gives a criterion for leaving people out. The other list is enormous, but unwikified and seems to contain a lot of people who don't have their own article. I started to link some of the names but it's a horrible task. This list is a lot better – glad I found it – so I propose we move names from the other article here, but to do it right, wikify correctly and only include when there's a biography to link to. Maybe we can move the whole list and put it in this article at the right letter but in comment, so we can do the work later and easily see what names are already here. Then we can redirect the other article to eliminate double work. Piet 09:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boldface

Something else: what's with the boldfacing? Some links are made bold, this has nothing to do with the explanation at the top (non-English language). Starting from "H" there are suddenly less links in bold. Is there a system to this? Piet 21:39, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

My bad. I started it, forgot to finish it. Got distracted.
I wanted to boldface the entries for visual purposes only; it started to get a tad confusing for me to read with the language wikilinks etc, so I decided to take the exhortation "Be Bold!" literally. As for the bold italics: generally, foreign words are italicized; so I further used bold to distinguish the nickname in question from the holder. While I agree it may be gilding the lily in the case of Magnus Barefoot/Magnus Barfot, I think it is essential in cases like David the Builder/დავით აღმაშენებელი. Sorry I left the whole thing in a half-shemozzle, but it's finished, from the entry point-of-vew. What I would like to do next is get accurate translations of these nicknames into the languages they were first used in. The other thing I'm going to start doing (which I should have been doing up to now -- *wrist slap* Ow!) is citing sources. SigPig 01:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mergefrom

The merge has not been done, because someone has suddenly started to wikify the Nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility. This article seems better to me although the other has more names. I discussed concentrating the efforts on this article but failed, so I propose we let Rajofcanada finish the other article and then go on with the merge. Piet 12:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it seems that we are working at cross purposes, then, because the bigger each article gets, the harder it's going to be to integrate them. --SigPig 05:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)