Category talk:Surnames

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This article falls within the scope of the Anthroponymy WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Anthroponymy, the study of people's names. This project is dedicated to creating uniform helpful encyclopedia quality articles on the surnames, family names and nicknames of people. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
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I have noticed that not all the surnames around today are on this list. Can someone please expand the list of surnames, even if the surname only belongs to people who haven't changed the course of history in the slightest. Not everything has to have be hyperlinked you know. K.h.w.m 07:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

To add more items to this category you would have to find them (create them first if necessary) and add [[Category:Surnames]] to the bottom of the pages. It's not possible to categorize a page that does not exist yet, if that's what you mean by "not everything has to have be hyperlinked". — CharlotteWebb 23:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] too big

Too many articles in this cat; it needs reducing and subcatted. Also, the main country surname cats need to be resorted so they appear on the first page (with "| " or "|* at end of category code: [[Category:Surnames| ]] ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ|c) 05:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. There is no longer any real reason to avoid a category of this size. It would be much, much smaller, for example, than our Category:Living people which now has a quarter million entries listed in it.
There is no reason whatsoever why someone should have to know the country of origin of a surname in order to find it in this listing. Nor to trust that those with multiple origins have been properly entered in all the subcategories to which they could be placed. Another problem is the changing nature of political entities throughout history, and changes to the political climate under which various ethnic groups exist, and even the basic question in the first place as to whether subdivisions are on an ethnicity basis or a nationality basis, and how finely are those divisions going to be broken down. Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
For example, I've known thousands of people names Johnson, and I doubt that 10% of those people I know have a name that originated in England. Yet Category:English surnames is the only category in which it appears. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
See the discussion below about the problematics of categorizing surnames in this fashion. --Lquilter (talk) 16:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] purpose of category

This category appears to be used mainly for disambiguation, collecting articles that really ought to be disambiguation lists and in Category:Disambiguation using {{Disambig}}. Some editors and I explained the problems with these varying uses at a CFD on 2007/11/11, but discussion of those points was unfortunately obscured by discussion specific to the category at hand (Category:Jewish surnames). I'd like to raise this here for people who work on this category, and develop a consistent approach that achieves consensus and treats all surname categories the same. Can we agree, to start, that:

  1. Category:Surnames and its subcategories should certainly be used for articles on surnames themselves, their history, ethnic origins, meaning, variants, and so on ... not for disambiguation pages.
  2. {{Disambiguation}} and {{hndis}} should be applied to articles here that are wholly lists of people with the particular name? (Adding to Category:Disambiguation and Category:Lists of ambiguous human names; and these disambiguation pages are not articles on surnames.

These points seem non-controversial, and if we can all agree on them first, then perhaps after that we can come to some consensus regarding point 3 (which I think is actually quite troubling):

3. My basic perspective is that these ethnic-surname categories should not be applied to biographical articles, or to lists of people with a particular name, because it is (1) overcategorization by name (see WP:OCAT) and (2) either redundant or misleading of categorizations that directly address the ethnicity/historical origins of people. Further more elaborated points & counterpoints were raised on the CFD on 2007/11/11. I presume that the Jewish-specific points shouldn't apply to discussions of the category tree as a whole.

--Lquilter (talk) 20:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Point 2 is very controversial. Please read WP:D and MoS:DP and understand what a disambiguation page is before proceeding. In particular, see MoS:DP#Given names or surnames. While "Keith Andrews" is a disambiguation page, because that would be the natural title for an article about any one of them, the "Keith (given name)" and "Andrews (surname)" pages do not resolve conflicts about which person has a claim to a WP article with that title, so they are articles about the given name or surname, and may list people who bear that name. Although they may provide a very useful reference for readers who are looking for an article but only know the given name or surname, these are not disambiguation pages by the Wikipedia definition. If you propose separating the onomastics, history, variants and trivia from the list of people bearing that name, fine, but I personally feel that it would just be scattering related information. But be clear that lists of people who have a certain surname are not disambiguation pages. Chris the speller (talk) 18:48, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, they may not be disambiguation pages; but they're lists of unrelated things. Look at Abelson -- what should we do with it? It's not a useful "list" article; it's not an article about the surname "Abelson". I realize it may not fit the criteria for a dab page, but it looks closer to that than anything else. --Lquilter (talk) 18:52, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
It's a very useful page for people who are looking for a scientist but can't remember the first name: "Pat Abelson?, Pete Abelson", Paul Abelson?, no, that's not it ..." I don't see the harm in having the list within the article about the surname origins, and that's currently the way most of them are. If the article also had info about the surname and you wanted to split the page, you could split the list onto Abelson (surname holders) or something like that, but you should then provide a link to it from Abelson. I have created about 400 surname articles myself over the last few months, so you would have a huge job of moving or splitting these lists and then fixing the links from dab pages and others (many from related surname lists), plus maintaining the new category you come up with. Some readers or editors will object to having to click through to another article. I don't think your sense of purity, as noble as it may be, warrants all the work involved, but if you're up to it, and can educate masses of editors, good luck! Chris the speller (talk) 19:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Chris the speller. It's important that an encyclopedia have a list of last names for people that are trying to find someone but they only know the last name. With me, personally, it happens frequently that I am able to find someone by looking through the surname list. Indeed, Lquilter has made some strong arguments regarding the conflicts between the ethnicity of each person on the list conforming with the subcategory. But there isn't much that can be done. Unless you want to seperate the surname article from the list of names. One thing for sure, the "lists" should stay in some sort of format, and they should not be considered dab's. --Brewcrewer (talk) 00:19, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem I have with "X surnames" categories is that reasons the names included in them are often not self-evident, may have independent origins in several languages or ethnic groups, and the additions of articles to the categories are frequently done so without any verification. Wikipedia:Categorization says:

Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Categories that are not self-evident, or are shown through reliable sources to be controversial, should not be included on the article; a list might be a better option.

Which says to me that categories, like Category:Jewish surnames or Category:Polish surnames, should be changed into lists that include reliable sources which verify the origin of each surname. I would rather have a well verified "List of Jewish surnames" article that links to each of the other articles, than a haphazard and frequently unverified "Jewish surnames" category.
I pick on the "Jewish surnames" category mainly because it was the first I stumbled across, and in investigating it I noticed that a number of the names currently there, like Aron, Brenner, Cramer, De Haas, etc..., either include no information saying that the names are of Jewish origin, or actually claim a different origin altogether. It also seems that categories are being used by some editors as a convenient way to bypass Wikipedia's verifiability, reliable sources, and/or original research guidelines. And considering the racial hatred some people have for some groups, these additions of categories may suffer due to POV or conflict of interest problems.
Converting the "X surnames" categories to well verified "List of X surnames" articles would help prevent these problems, solve the overcategorization problem, address Chris the speller's and Brewcrewer's complaints about losing information, and give us an easy way to see who is adding what names, which can be much more difficult when categories are used. Sound good? -- HiEv 15:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • My $0.02: only articles about the surname should be categorized here; purely dab's: lists of people with that last name should get sent elsewhere. I am as guilty as most by tagging surname on those such lists, consistent with current practice but not an optimal solution. As for surnames of Fooian origin; that's mostly OR and POV, and to the extent not, it's OCAT. They should all be deleted. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Please, please, please do not call lists of people who share a surname "dabs". Read MoS:DP#Given names or surnames. I tag surname on those lists, and I am not guilty of anything, just following the guideline. Chris the speller (talk) 20:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Anyway, there is no question that the history and origin of names (including surnames) is an interesting and important topic. The real question is what would these articles look like, and what would a category structure be for them. I think it is highly problematic to have "surnames" categorized ethnically which are basically just lists of people with that surname. It is redundant of the ethnic categorization scheme for people; worse, it is often inaccurate to categorize those people with those ethnicities; and finally, it fails to exemplify the principle of least surprise. If I go to a category called Category:Surnames I expect to see articles about surnames; not lists of people with that name. To see lists of people with a particular surname I would look for a category called Category:Lists of people by surname.
Possibilities to address these issues apparently are:
  1. Leave articles that are articles about surnames in the Category:Surnames structure and move the others to a different system;
AND
  1. Call them "Lists of people with surname XXXXX" OR
  2. Call them by the surname and tag a {{disambiguation}} template on them. Chris the speller is making an argument that "lists of surnames" as presently included in much of the Category:Surnames are not, in fact, "disambiguation" pages according to Wikipedia disambiguation guidelines. I've read WP:DAB and am not so certain that it's that clear. Brewcrewer describes a "list of last names for people that are trying to find someone but they only know the last name". Why is that not a type of disambiguation? WP:DAB states that Sometimes, there will be a disambiguation navigation page and a set index article with a similar name. For example, there is some topic XXXX which consists of concepts of type YYYY plus other meanings. In this case, the disambiguation navigation page should be named XXXX, and the set index article be named List of YYYY named XXXX. Alternatively, if the meaning YYYY is very dominant, then the set index article should be named XXXX, and the disambiguation navigation page be named XXXX (disambiguation). Whether to use this alternative follows the guidelines for naming disambiguation articles which seems to anticipate this kind of confusion. Since people are oftentimes known by their surnames, why wouldn't that be considered a type of disambiguation page? Or if it's not now, then why shouldn't it be? See, for example, Wikipedia:Non-unique_personal_name which includes a number of names that to my untrained eye appear to be surnames. "Adams". "Ackermann". "Adamov". "Addison". And so forth. ... At any rate, I don't care if they are considered "disambiguation" or not; I just want them properly categorized in a way that is not misleading and inaccurate and unnecessarily redundant.
--Lquilter (talk) 22:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The MoS says "Pages only listing persons with certain given names or surnames who are not widely known by these parts of their name otherwise are not disambiguation pages". Crystal clear to me and to other editors who do serious work on disambiguation pages. If it is still unclear, also read WP:D#Lists, "Do not add links that merely contain part of the page title". So if you try to consider the Brownstein page as a disambiguation page, it contains "Alec Brownstein" and "Carrie Brownstein", etc., which should then be removed during any cleanup, leaving by a disambig page with no entries. Bio articles generally use the given name and surname together as the page title, so no disambiguation is needed for Alec and Carrie, as they naturally get article titles that do not collide; that's what WP disambiguation is all about.
Look again at Wikipedia:Non-unique personal name. It's dead. Last talk page entry was 4 years ago, and it's maintained by hand, with less than 50 edits in the last year. I'm surprised it hasn't been nominated for deletion.
Speaking of deletion, you should know that hundreds or thousands of such pages were deleted earlier this year: "Lists of people by name" were wiped out wholesale after a handful of vehement opponents claimed consensus in an Afd vote. They were gone before I could even kiss goodby to several thousand edits and months of my work. If you have similar-looking pages with a similar-sounding name, you may as well walk out into a thunderstorm carrying a long copper pipe over your head and hope you're not going to take a jolt. If you want these to remain, keep the page names as they are, and add history, onomastics and such namecruft at the top so they don't just look like lists of people by name. Chris the speller (talk) 23:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is quite the busy organization and it's hard to keep up with everything going on, to ensure consistent policies and applications throughout. Your comments provide me with another example (I now have several) where different working groups end up heading off in different directions from each other. ::::::: ... This is neither here nor there, though. I have no interest in redefining what is probably a well-thought-out DAB policy. But the problem is what to do with these pages. I definitely do not want to keep the pages as they are, or, at least, I do not want to keep them categorized as they are. Not having participated in the Lists of people by name arguments, I'm not really familiar with the arguments for & against. But I *can* say that as currently categorized, the Category:Surnames tree is quite problematic. And it seems like an assortment of intelligent wikipedia editors should be able to come to consensus around what are the functions that are needed and how to best arrange them. --Lquilter (talk) 23:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Chris the speller's arguments don't hold water in any case. It doesn't matter one whit what someone has put in the Wikipedia:Disambiguation articles, these are disambiguation pages in any meaningful sense of that terminology. When some article talks about a write named Pound and has linked to it in that way, we need to fix that link to a disambiguation page. And it is a whole lot easier to do so if we have the necessary information available on some disambiguation page.
Furthermore, these disambiguation pages often come into play when we deal with articles about things that have been named after specific people. Maybe some comet or asteroid, for example. Or any of the huge number of eponymous laws found in mathematics and the sciences, for another example. The names of these laws generally include only the surname, not given names. We use these disambiguation pages, listing the people with that surname, to help us disambiguate those links, or to make useful links which should be there but cannot be if we cannot match the surname up to an appropriate given name. Gene Nygaard (talk) 03:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Chris the speller's arguments hold plenty of water if you read the guidelines. These guidelines were established (and continue to exist) by consensus, not by my decree. And no, these surname articles ARE NOT STINKIN' DISAMBIGUATION PAGES, no matter how much you shout. By consensus, they are not, as explained above, and on the MoS for disambiguation pages. If you insist on calling these surname articles disambig pages, then another editor can insist on enforcing the MoS, which calls for deleting entries that simply list people with a certain surname, and then you have no list at all. This helps nobody. The entry for Ezra Pound can be put on the disambig page, if you find that there are links to "Pound" where they mean that writer. The disambig MoS discourages entries for people with a given surname "unless they are very frequently referred to simply by the single name (e.g., Elvis, Shakespeare)". Whose arguments don't hold water? The MoS:DP works fine if you read and understand it. Chris the speller (talk) 16:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The MoS:DP works fine if you read and understand it. The problem is that a reasonably bright person (myself) can read the disambiguation guidelines, see that the surname issue is addressed in a particular way and excluded "by definition" from being a disambiguation page, but not see a principled reason for that distinction. It appears arbitrary to say the least. You can describe that as the reader not understanding the guideline, but I'll politely point out that if a reader cannot understand a guideline, that is not the reader's fault. A guideline that does not explain itself well may have that problem because of poor drafting that resulted in unclear description of a clear consensus, or it may be an indicator that the consensus on this matter wasn't actually clear which resulted in a accurate drafting of an unclear state of mind(s). (Or a mix of both.)
In other words, Chris the speller, I hear you loud and clear that the DAB guidelines say this isn't included. Fine. Then you are telling us that the DAB guidelines do not apply; therefore, as far as I can see, there is no guidance for this situation, and we have to write some. That can either go into the DAB guidelines (which would have to be altered to accommodate) or it should be a separate guideline. I would propose "Wikipedia:Surname disambiguation" as a title for that guideline. Regardless of whether you agree with my first paragraph, Chris the speller, do you agree with the second, and what would you suggest in terms of naming a guideline to deal with this issue? --Lquilter (talk) 18:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
A few points for Chris the speller
  1. It is not within the scope of authority of the MoS to deal with deleting articles.
  2. Not calling it a "disambiguation" page simply means that the disambiguation rules do not apply. Nonetheless, in most of the surname lists, there is absolutely no reason to be including extraneous links to [[Spain|Spanish]] or to [[wrestler]] or whatever; in that regard, they should be the same in either case.
  3. Rather than whining about these not being "disambiguation" pages, though in non–Wikipedia jargon meanings of that terminology they are, you'd be better served concentrating on arguing how these pages should be treated differently, and what you think is best for them.
  4. Clearly, as Lquilter has pointed out, you have no other consensus to stand on. Nothing, if we through out the disambiguation guidelines. Gene Nygaard (talk) 09:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
A considerable number of the current members of this category and its subcategories are also general disambiguation pages clearly fitting under the Wikipedia disambiguation page definition. That is a good thing, and it should remain that way.
  • The surname pages should exist.
  • There is no good reason for separate articles to exist in many cases, where neither the general disambiguation nor the surname list are large enough to warrant sending someone looking for that information on a chase through a series of links to find what they want.
  • There is not much of any significance that should be different about the way these pages should be formatted and linked and the like.
  • The disambiguation guidelines should accomodate this. Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Just to make it clear -- it's not Chris' fault that the guidelines aren't clear -- he's doing a very good job of explaining what they're meant to do, and why we've been having problems, and I appreciate it. --Lquilter (talk) 22:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I am glad that some editors can see that I am trying to be hepful to both WP and its editors. If Gene can stop sharpening his skills at hurling barbs for a moment, and go read the Archive 29 of the talk page for WP:MOSDAB, section "Should we create a style guide for Title (surname)?", I'll have one more editor who can see that I'm trying to help. You'll also see that I have not accomplished what I set out to do in April. A few editors have expressed their desire for such a style guideline directly to my talk page as well, but have not taken the lead (dammit!), and I have not found a suitable block of time to actually proceed. Look it over and comment on it. I will say that I think it's a very bad idea to have the word "disambiguation" in the name of the guideline for pages that list people with a surname, as too many editors confuse these with disambiguation pages as it is. The more you make a surname article look like an article, and less like just a list, the more survivable it will be. Adding onomastics, history, geographical distribution and the like at the top of a surname article will slow down editors who want to enforce the point that WP is not a search index. Chris the speller (talk) 17:27, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Chris -- I'll look at this. I have a bit of catching up to do to fully understand the thinking that has gone into defining disambiguation pages in particular ways, and I'm about to start traveling. This is staying on my to do, list, though. --Lquilter (talk) 18:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] subcategories

  • I would suggest that (except those of indigenouse descent), there should be no canadian or Austrialian categories, since all surnames will be those of immigrants.
  • The British Isles category has subcategories for England and Ireland, but none for Scotland (covering surnames derived from Scottish places, and the Mc and Mac surnames of the highlands.

Similarly there should be a Welsh subcategory for such typical naems as Evans and Jones.

  • The present main category should be purged of individual surnames, which (until sorted) should go to a new "surnames -unclassified" category. Peterkingiron (talk) 00:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
It has {{cattrim}} which makes this point already. I guess it could be a task for the new WikiProject Anthroponymy to down-categorise all the surname articles. I don't recall seeing an "unclassified" category before in other hierarchies, and don't think that is the way to go. The present category population may be largely a result of using the template {{surname}}; once specific sub-cats have been added to each article, that template will need |nocat adding within the brackets. - Fayenatic (talk) 19:14, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
There certainly are surnames that originated in Canada and Australia. It doesn't matter if the people using these surnames are immigrants. Their names might be based on some other name from somewhere else; but they are no longer the same surname, after they are respelled to better fit into the English language, or after they are translated into English, or after they are changed to something that just sounds similar or some other modification.
But unfortunately many of the people here are flying off on tangents. The subcategories here should have to do with where the surnames came from. Period. It should have nothing in particular to do with the nationality or the ethnicity of all of the people using those surnames. Many surnames, of course, have multiple and independent sources. The problem is, that multiplicity is poorly represented in the current subcategorization schemes, and that is a major reason why the main category here should not be emptied out, contrary to the statements currently on the category page saying that this should be done. Gene Nygaard (talk) 03:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I made the Australian and Canadian subcats but I kind of agree that they should go. I just wanted to make as many subcats as possible, and then figure out after that which should go and which should stay. In regard to Scottish and Welsh subcats there is a Category:Scottish surnames and Category:Welsh surnames, but it doesn't come up on the first page in Category:British Isles surnames because the cat has two pages and the "S" and the "W" don't come up until the second page. I have to figure out how to fix that. --Brewcrewer (talk) 08:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I've added CategoryTree tags which fixed that. - Fayenatic (talk) 19:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
All should go, take an example: Borisov, a list of people bearing the name but no explanation of how the name was formulated. Borisov is categorized as both a Bulgarian or Russian origin name. So which is it and RSes point us to which it is. Origin (like original) means someone somewhere must have been first - was it Russia or Bulgaria? If we know, put sourcing to back it up; if we don't remove the categories as unproven. And if the categories only serve to say someone named Borisov may have roots in Russia or Bulgaria then the category is OCAT, because (a) some female may have married into the name and have origins in Kenya; (b) someone with that name may have never been to those places like born and raised in Canada, Australia, England, or Kenya; (c) people do change their surnames other than through marriage. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, some surnames are retro-nyms; my own surname, "Quilter", is often taken to be "people who make quilts". In fact it was an anglicization of a Celtic name, best rendered "Kelteagh" or something like that. --Lquilter (talk) 22:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
1)"origin" doesn't have to be understood as the "original." It can be easily understood as "originates out of." If A originates out of B, it doesn't mean that B cannot originate out of somthing else. 2) Absolutely noone will assume that if this person has an French surname that he speaks with a French accent. Of course there are inter-ethnic marriages. --Brewcrewer (talk) 03:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I totally agree with you on point 1, though I think you meant for your second "B" to be an "A" instead. But on point 2, if you think some people won't assume the stupidest things then I can only guess you haven't been living on Earth very long.  ;-D There are people out there who will assume that someone is French if their surname is LeClaire, Chinese if their surname is Chang, or Jewish if their surname is Goldfarb. Because they might often be right, some people overgeneralize and thus make bad assumptions. For that reason it's not a bad idea to be clear with surnames that we're talking about the origin of the name, i.e. the earliest language(s) and/or ethnic group(s) it comes from, and not where it is commonly "originates" from today or other such things by using vague terms like "region".
That being said, I'd like to stress again my comment in the "purpose of category" section above, and say that I think surname subcategories should be changed from categories to lists. The categories as they are now suffer a lot of problems, and I think making them into lists would prevent more problems than it creates. See my earlier comments for my reasons why. -- HiEv 15:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • HiEv, what is the specific proposal? Category:Albanian surnames would become Category:Lists of Albanian surnames? or Category:Lists of people with Albanian surnames? or Category:Surname lists? Category:Uses of Albanian surnames? Or just delete the categories altogether and replace with lists? (Much better IMO.) And then the individual articles would be, what, Surname? e.g., Belushi? or Lists of uses of Belushi? Or what? --Lquilter (talk) 17:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, the Category:Albanian surnames category would be deleted (and possibly salted), and the information would be added to a new List of Albanian surnames article as a stand-alone list. That way the page could be clear about what the contents of the list are, each name could (and should) have a reliable source right there, the list of editors would be centralized, and it would help prevent some of the unverified/NPOV/COI additions of surname subcategories that I mentioned earlier. Yeah, in the conversion they would lose a few of the benefits of being a category, but I think the cost/benefit ratio of doing them as a category vs. list favors doing them as a list. -- HiEv 01:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
(1) How would those pages withstand WP:AFD notability and verifiability/reliable source and WP is not an indiscriminate collection of things grounds? (2) I take it that names on the list would link to a page like Belushi which would include what? ... name-history/etc., or a list of people with that last name? --Lquilter 14:07, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't particularly like the subcategories, which are rife with problems. The articles in the subcategories should be moved into Category:Surnames and the subcategories could then be deleted, or stay for all I care, as long as it is made clear that anything in a subcategory belongs in the main Surnames category. Gene Nygaard (talk) 03:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Not a creature was stirring ... We seem to have achieved no additional consensus here to remedy this problem, which is unfortunate, because without a straightforward solution to problems identified, it will pop up again and again. I encourage folks to put a bit more effort into this problem. --Lquilter (talk) 20:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    • As a small response to the above, I've downgraded the template message on the category page from {{cattrim}} to {{verylarge}} to give a "where appropriate" signal rather than "mostly" down-categorise. - Fayenatic (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)