Talk:Turin

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was don't move. —Nightstallion (?) 12:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Turin → Torino – Torino is the name preferred by many Italians and, due to the 2006 Winter Olympics, many English-speakers. The 2006 Winter Olympics have popularized the name "Torino" over the name "Turin" as the city was almost never referred to by the latter during the Games.

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

The 2006 Winter Olympics have popularized the name Torino over the name Turin. This claim is false. Today's Google News search returns 73,300 hits for Turin and only 15,100 for Torino, the latter figure including those simply quoting the title Torino 2006 but using Turin in all other respects. Moreover, the English-speaking world is not just the US, so the impression of a single American is by no means reliable. But the US is divided on usage as well. SI, for example, uses Turin as well. --89.52.34.245 13:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. joturner 19:32, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose The English name remains Turin. The Olympic broadcast was international, and conformed to Italian usage, as reflected on the publicity. Septentrionalis 04:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. What he said. Graham 05:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose Wikipedia: Naming conventions (use English). This is the name historically used in English-language writing. Place-name articles should be named what most native speakers of the language of the Wikipedia (English, in this case), who are not bilingual in the relevant language, would call the place.Wikipedia: Principle of least astonishment. The most famous reference is called the Shroud of Turin, not "Shroud of Torino". Moreover, per discussion below, this is the historical local name for the place. Robert A.West(Talk) 07:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly support. The former Turin was instrumental in uniting Italy from a collection of city-states. In this united Italy, Torino is the name of this city. Italian is the predominant language of not only Italy, but also Torino. And the "Shroud of Turin" argument is false, just as we can continue to enjoy "Peking duck" and see it called such even on menus in Beijing. A google search of Italian language pages finds 10.1 million hits on Torino versus 820K hits for Turin, and searching for Turin WITHOUT Torino finds a paltry 397,000. Continuing to call Torino "Turin" is akin to continuing to refer to the Southern US as "The Confederacy." Docpurpleman 17:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Substantive reply below.Robert A.West (Talk) 19:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If you think that using Turin nowadays is the same as using "The Confederacy", then what is using Germany instead of Deutschland akin to? Germany derives from the name of the Roman (!) province (Germania). The German version of that (Germanien) is only used to refer to antiquity and is not even etymologically related to Deutschland. So here a name of more than 2000 years of age has been preserved. The fascists' attempt to eradicate Piedmontese is not even a hundred years old (and didn't fully succeed, so while it's not standard Italian, Turin is definitely an endonym). What I'm trying to say is that following your rule Germany is a much more prominent case than Turin. And I doubt you say Deutschland when talking English. But it's usage what counts anyway. And usage is for Germany and still quite clearly for Turin. --89.52.108.189 21:26, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It is not simply usage that counts; people consult an encyclopedia to get BETTER information than they already possess. And decisions of this type do not uniformly fall on the side of usage in Wikipedia, thank goodness: Consider that Aluminum is redirected to Aluminium, although Aluminum is the more popular spelling by 3 to 1. The "Aluminum" spelling, was the result of a typographical error in establishing what should have been the Aluminium company of America (Alcoa)

69.162.47.55 05:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Bad example, since both words are English. The article could equally well be called "Aluminum", but a non-American started it, so it stays as is. Robert A.West (Talk) 07:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

You sadly misunderstand the purpose and operation of Wikipedia if you think that first-come-first-served, or popular misusage should guide content. 69.162.47.55 05:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - Leave it as Turin. Every language has examples where city names shift from language to langugae. evrik 19:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose - Turin is the English name. Only some English-speaking media outlets decided to call it Torino during the Olympics. I know that both NPR and the CBC continued to call it Turin. TacoDeposit 20:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Turin is the local name and it has long been the English name as well. Jonathunder 20:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• 'Oppose — use English name in English encyclopaedia — Gareth Hughes 21:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose - The city is always referred to as Turin by the IOC, as you can see here [2]. Bayerischermann 21:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, prefer English name. Conscious 06:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, In English it's Turin, and that should be enough. Aldux 14:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, "Torino is the name preferred by many Italians". Then Torino can be used in the Italian Wikipedia. This is English Wikipedia, though, and English should be used for article titles. AjaxSmack 01:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. It was decided long ago to respect the "use English" and "use common names" naming conventions with regard to city names. In this case, the most commonly used name for this city in English is "Turin". Moving this article to "Torino" would be in direct violation of some of the oldest and longest-standing policies we have. Nohat 10:05, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose until Torino becomes common English-speaking usage. David Kernow 14:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, hundreds of years trump a few weeks. We should use English names for cities, even if they're briefly out of vogue due to a massive HR campaign. Makemi 22:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support, Torino has been in use far more than a few weeks, and if popular usage is as important as some comments suggest it is, then an HR campaign is in fact important in this decision. The English language and foreign terms have changed for far worse reasons, such as a president's call for "a return to normalcy," reflecting his poor command of the language in what should have been "a return to normailty." UncleDave 16:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

My point was that Torino has not been used in English for more than a few weeks, by the majority of people. Also, I don't think we should decide the results of a major HR campaign a week after it ends. If the majority of English speakers are still referring to the historical city of Torino (rather than the games) in a year, then a name change might be in order. I probably shouldn't start this part of the discussion, but it could be argued that the Torino games were publicised as the Torino games in order to distance them from the historical city of Turin, in which case it would be even more of a bad idea to change the name of this article. Makemi 16:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. On Google News the query turin -torino italy gives 66,900 results, and the query italy torino -turin gives 6,420 results, more than 10x difference for Turin. --Sharcho 03:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

What distinction is there between this and a proposal to move Rome or Florence? Septentrionalis 04:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I note also the (entirely proper) existence of it:Londra, it:Inghilterra, and it:Stati Uniti d'America. The same principle applies both ways. Septentrionalis 05:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

So also, de:Turin, de:Amerika, de:Vereinigten Staaten, usw. This follows the corresponding principles for the German Wikipedia, as is perfectly proper. Those are the titles I would look under were I looking for the German article, and the ones I would naturally use for a link.

Italian usage is, accordingly, irrelevant: this is the english-language Wikipedia. Docpurpleman's "Confederacy" analogy is ill-conceived: "Turin" and "Torino" are the same name and refer to the same place in a way that "Confederacy" and "Southern US" do not and never did. Consider "Londra", "Londonium" and "London". The first is Italian, the second Latin and the last English, and those should be the relevant titles in the respective Wikipedias. The "Beijing" analogy is also false: there was as concerted and successful effort in official circles to reform transliteration of Chinese proper names -- still it took years to accomplish this. If and when "Torino" becomes the commonly-used name in English over a much longer period than an olympic season, then changing the name would be appropriate. In this matter Wikipedia should be descriptive, not prescriptive, and we should avoid affectation whenever possible. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If you took the time to actually read the response, you would have noticed that the argument was actually pointing out that Peking can change to Beijing by request of the Chinese government without affecting the spelling of Peking Duck. 69.162.47.55 05:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC) Dicussion prior to the official move request follows:

[edit] Torino v Turin

This city has always been called Turin, but all of a sudden, now that the Olympics have been awarded to the city, even the US broadcast networks have started calling it Torino.

Comment : It has certainly NOT always been called Turin; it has also been called Taurinorum, Taurinum, and Torino.

69.162.47.55 05:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Comment : The BBC continued to refer to the city as Turin.

The official logo for those winter games uses "Torino 2006", but the IOC still refers to it as Turin. Turin is the original name of the city, you could almost say the media is doing the same work that the fascists started in trying to eradicate Piedmontese. Some english-speaking media is even apologetic about the use of the word Turin.

It's also worth noting that the name of the city in its local language (Piedmontese) is actually "Turin"; that's not some sort of invented English name. Torino is the Italian name for it -- especially with southern Italians.

Comment : Piedmontese is ONE of the local languages, the majority speak Italian.

69.162.47.55 05:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC) NBC admitted that they chose to use "Torino" because it was sexier and more marketable.

Turin is not even an anglicized version, Turin IS the name of the city before the fascists outlawed Piedmontese.

Comment : Actually the word Torino was used well before the fascists; the effort to standardize Italian based on the Florentine dialect began with the Italian unification in the 1860's.

69.162.47.55 05:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course. But originally only Turin was an endonym. Today they both are. --128.176.21.253 11:13, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From "Turin" to "Torino"

From "Turin" to "Torino": Olympics Put New Name on the Map James Owen for National Geographic News February 6, 2006

Interesting article, although they fail to distinguish the phenomenon of an actual name change for whatever reasons, a basic but important difference. The article also fails to mention that while the IOC wants Torino to be used when referring to the Games, it is still supposed to be Turin when referring to the host city. Torino sounds better. Turin is ugly and outdated.

In any case, Turin is certainly more accurate - the residents call it Turin. That's what really matters when looking for the actual name of a place.

Is Turin more accurate? My understanding is that the residents (at least the current ones) universally refer to their town as 'Torino'. Albanaco 02:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course we call it "Torino". Nowadays the Piedmontese is spoken by a minority of the residents. Andrea.gf 13:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The Piedmontese name is a bit of a red herring. This is the English wikipedia, the article is about the city with its given English name, just as Florence is not Firenze in the English WP. The marketing bonzos of the games decided to use the Italian name. That's their choice, but it's nothing official. What has the IOC's marketing got to do with our encyclopedia? Graham 05:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.