The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Y Done - consensus seems to be in favour of a move. Neıl ☎ 13:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

In keeping with the discussion above, the legal form of his surname in the country in which he was born and played his entire career is spelt without diacritics, and the vast majority of references in the press, and by his clubs,have used a simple I. It would seem quite proper that in tr.wikipedia the Turkish letter is used, but English allows the appropriate pronunciation without any need for the diacritic, and therefore it is not necessary to make a phonic distinction, nor is it accurate in legal-historic terms, nor is it in keeping with normal usage. The relevant policy says:
Diacritics should only be used in an article's title, if it can be shown that the word is routinely used in that way, with diacritics, in common usage. This means in reliable English sources, such as eencyclopedias, dictionaries, or articles in major English-language newspapers.
If the word is routinely listed in reliable English sources without diacritics, then the Wikipedia article should follow that method for the article title, though the diacritics version should be given in the initial paragraph of the article as suggested in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).
If it is not clear what "common usage" is, then the general Wikipedia guideline is to avoid use of diacritics in article titles.
It does not appear that these criteria have been met. Kevin McE (talk) 13:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support as this is the English Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Valid application of the diacritic. The redirect from Muzzy Izzet is functional. Húsönd 00:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Changed to neutral unless proven he's registered with the Turkish diacritic. Húsönd 00:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support unless there is evidence that he is usually called by the diacritic. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - He played for the Turkish national team, thus he is Turkish and his name should be spelled in the correct Turkish way. - MTC (talk) 19:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - Because he's born in the UK, and spend all his career in UK, except the few matches internationally for Turkey. Chanheigeorge (talk) 03:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • This is also related: Talk:Tony Popovic. Not to mention a group of Australian footballers who currently have diacritics. Chanheigeorge (talk) 10:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Somewhat related. But nobody ever presented any evidence whatsoever of Tony spelling his name as anything other than "Popovic". Gene Nygaard (talk) 13:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose Turkish links: [1] and [2]. Keep always original spellings, a redirect is enough. --necronudist (talk) 10:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

• "he was born, and his birth was legally registered, in the United Kingdom, where only the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet in use in English are permitted as part of a name" - I'm almost certain this is untrue and can find no evidence to contradict my belief. Can you back up your statement at all? The UK has extremely lax restrictions on naming compared with most countries.
• The name on the birth certificate doesn't matter anyway - try William Jefferson Blythe III or Leslie Lynch King, Jr.. What matters is the most commonly used name in English writing; Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford.
• Where a person spends most of their life is irrelevant. Frédéric Chopin spent (just) over half his life in Poland known as Fryderyk Chopin, but what matters is the most commonly used name in English writing, Frédéric.
• Where a person is born doesn't matter; Lukas Podolski was born in Poland with the name Łukasz. Still doesn't change the fact the most commonly used name in English writing is Lukas.
• One final time - what matters is the most commonly used name in English writing - that's the one thing that the naming conventions demand and that's the one thing nobody here has yet tried to demonstrate either way.

So can we do this properly and actually demonstrate the predominant usage as required by the policy?

Anecdotally, from my reading of football press in English, Izzet is predominant. Weak evidence, but at least its an admissible argument according to our guideline. I'm sure someone else can do better.

(But before people rush off to Google for "definitive proof" - experiment a bit with its optical character recognition. You will find that it won't discriminate between İ, I, Ï, or even l or 1 in some cases, returning them as I or even other letters completely. Other howlers include returning ü as o, ß as B, ł as t, ö as b (try Universitat Kbln on Google Scholar for Universität Köln) and so on. Basically it's not yet up to the job for distnguishing diacritic use reliably - but there's still plenty of sources other than Google, thank goodness). Knepflerle (talk) 13:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

After your explanation, I can agree. But there's a paradox: the dotted I can't be used by English press 'cause simply don't exist in English alphabet. You know, here in Italy we wrote for years Lothar Matthaeus... quite weird. However I didn't googled, they're two websites I use as Turkish national team database in my statician jobs. --necronudist (talk) 13:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Times and abilties are variable over time and publications - Matthäus, Matthäus, Löw and Ribéry... and quickly found in the archives of an English paper well known for its frequent spelling mistakes! English-language press does use letters outside the "standard 26" in some words and some proper names. The frequency and consistency of the usage is variable, however. Knepflerle (talk) 13:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If we're having this debate in 1999 (before he played for Turkey), no doubt in my mind his page should use "Izzet". Now fast forward a few years, and now he's played for Turkey. Should we change his page title? I don't think he legally changed his name, or that the English-language media suddenly decides they should use "İzzet". The only difference is that there are more Turkish articles written about him, and they all use "İzzet". But they're Turkish articles, so I don't see how that impacts his name in the English language. So I support "Izzet", as I don't think it's a case of "laziness" where diacritics are dropped. Chanheigeorge (talk) 22:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support. The proper name under our naming conventions. (And note that we do not have an "Always keep original spellings" rule as advocated by Necronudist, though in this case that is what it should be moved to, the original spelling and not the one altered by the Turks when he played for them; it isn't "original" spelling that matters, but rather the one under which he is generally known in English.) He was born in England, and played in England throughout his career. It is spelled Izzet there, as evidenced by numerous sources. Sure, the Turks may well have altered his birth name when he played for Turkey, but this isn't Turkish Wikipedia, it is English Wikipedia. We should be using the name under which he is best known in English. I get sick and tired of all the people who argue that it is quite legitimate for the Turks to alter a name such as Muzzy Izzet's when he plays for the Turkish national team, but who absolutely refuse to grant those using the English alphabet any corresponding rights to use their own alphabet when writing in their own language, and especially when it is about one of their own people. Gene Nygaard (talk) 13:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Where he was born doesn't matter. Where he played doesn't matter. No-one has shown that the "Turks changed his name" and refused to grant him rights when he played for them - do you have evidence of this? Do you have evidence what spelling he used before this? Do you have evidence what the "original spelling" is? If so, enlighten the rest of us. From my experience, Izzet is more common, I cannot prove this however.

The single thing we base decisions on is usage, and nothing else. Look for convincing evidence that one version is more common in English usage. That alone is both necessary and sufficient for a move, simple as that. By corollary, all other arguments are irrelevant. Let's make the right decision for a correct and irrefutable reason. Knepflerle (talk) 14:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Canvass. Húsönd 17:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: The quote that Kevin McE gives above, calling it "the relevant policy", is actually from a page that has been marked Rejected since last April. There is no policy regarding this issue. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 08:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: I also recall a similar discussion about Colin Kazim-Richards, an English-born player turned Turkish national. See Talk:Colin Kazim-Richards#Kazim/Kâzım: Page move discussion. Chanheigeorge (talk) 20:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Callmederek (talk) 21:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.