Talk:Suleiman (elephant)

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Did You Know An entry from Suleiman (elephant) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 3 August 2006.
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[edit] Naming

This elephant, named after a sultan, was presented by a Portuguese man to a German. I can't see why the article is using the English spelling of the Sultan's name, the German spelling seems to be used. Also, if this elephant was not comptemporarily called "Soliman der Elefant", we shouldn't be calling it this (if the elephant's name did include "der Elefant" then we should use the German). I thus propose we move this article to Soliman (elephant). --Oldak Quill 03:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

In German, he was and is almost certainly called "Soliman" - see the German article upon which this one is based, which is entitled "Soliman (Elefant)", begins "Der Elefant Soliman...", and then uses "Soliman" without "der Elefant". Clearly "Elefant" is required to distinguish him from the other Solimans, but I don't think it is part of his name per se. The Commons pages has a similar title, because, I think, it was created by a German.
In English, I have found very English sources that call him "Soliman" - he is almost always called either "Suleiman" or "Suleyman". See, for example,[1][2][3][4][5]. -- ALoan (Talk) 08:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
In light of this I have moved the article to Suleiman (elephant). --Oldak Quill 15:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Are you going to move Hanno the elephant, Mary the elephant, Ruby the Elephant, Topsy the Elephant, Tyke the elephant, and Clara the rhinoceros too? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
IMO, if "the [species]" was part of the animal's proper name the species should be capitalsed. If not, it should be disambiguated in brackets. I'll take a look at these. --Oldak Quill 23:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
If it exercises you that much, you may want to look through the sub-categories of Category:Famous animals. I'm not sure I agree, FWIW - in what sense is Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom her "proper name"? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maximilian?

Little problem here... Maximilian didn't become the Holy Roman Emperor until 1564, when his father Ferdinand died. Indeed, Maximilian didn't have any royal title until 1562, at the earliest. I suppose it's possible that the elephant was given specifically to the prince, rather than his father; but I'd like to see some specific references for this point, as it seems somewhat strange. Kirill Lokshin 03:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Er, sorry, yes, it was given to him before he became emperor (see the German article, which is a bit longer and gives some sources). Perhaps the article should make this clearer. I will add some external links from the section above, which should make it clearer. -- ALoan (Talk) 08:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Artists

Ok, so Burgkmair, Altdorfer and Durer were all dead years before the elephant ever got to Europe. Anybody know what's with this section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.134.181.209 (talk • contribs)

Hmm, now I'm beginning to wonder how good the fact-checking on the original German article was. Kirill Lokshin 04:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Ah - I supplemented the German article with material from our article History of elephants in Europe, which is where this one came from. See thisdiff. I will remove this offending section as it is not confirmed by the German article and clearly cannot be right. Thanks for pointing it out. -- ALoan (Talk) 08:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


Not a reliable source on its own, perhaps, but this site mentions the elephant walking to Vienna (through France). It also mentions that Burgkmair drew an elephant in the procession of Maximilian I. Kirill Lokshin 04:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The consensus of the sources I have seen are clear that the elephant was transported by ship to Genoa and walked from there. Perhaps the artist confusion comes from this other elephant. -- ALoan (Talk) 08:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)