Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2019-11/CFI policy for foreign given names and surnames

Latin

What would this mean for the names from various languages that are only attested in Latin text, but clearly are not of Latin origin? E.g. most early medieval Germanic given names. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 14:18, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Depends on their spelling, I suppose. If they're just written as is, they're not really Latin, are they? — surjection ⟨?⟩ 15:46, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, usually they're adapted to Latin orthography and have an -us or -a to turn them into respectively second or first declension proper nouns, and they're then inflected depending on case etc. like any other Latin name. We add such names as Latin entries currently, which then can serve as basis for the reconstruction of the corresponding Germanic language entry (as at *𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃 (*alareiks)). — Mnemosientje (t · c) 15:59, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I would argue that the former might place it in the "consistently used ... spelling ... that is markedly different", although the Latin entries might be hapax legomena, which makes it less clear. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 16:43, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Alaricus definitely isn't a hapax, but I have no doubt that a significant amount of names like it are indeed only attested once. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:02, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Comment

I think the purpose of this vote is to narrow down the scope of words accepted as lemmas in categories such as Category:Portuguese surnames from Japanese (396 entries). See also Talk:Hong where an editor wanted to add Tagalog surnames based on Facebook profiles.

I think the "oppose" section can be split into two groups:

1. editors that want all names attestable in language X to be accepted as lemmas, and are hence opposed to the more restrictive criteria.
2. editors that want other criteria (e.g. completely ban such words that are borrowings) regarding the policy for Wiktionary names. KevinUp (talk) 01:58, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I think the entire concept of assigning a language to a name is questionable. But this is Wiktionary so everything has to be categorized as belonging to a particular language. Coming up with convoluted and artificial rules for doing so (this vote) is coming at it from the wrong side. And "Translingual" is not a solution either. DTLHS (talk) 03:00, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Anything is better than the status quo that permits editors to create entries for names of e.g. state leaders in 50+ languages, flooding the reader with useless information when the name entry has basically every major language written in the same script. Hell, I'm almost even more for completely removing coverage on given names and surnames than for how the situation is right now. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 08:51, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I think a per-language consideration will be needed regarding the coverage/removal of given names and surnames.

For example:

1. Category:Chinese given names does not exist because in theory, any Chinese character(s) can be used as a given name.

However, we do have Category:Chinese surnames, because the definition of some words such as 佟 (Tóng) is just "surname" and nothing else. If surnames are banned then the entry for 佟 (Tóng) would have no definition.

2. Category:Tamil surnames does not exist because the surname is the father's given name. See also Wikipedia:Patronymic.

The current vote limits the CFI for given names/surnames. In future, we could have another vote such as "no entry is allowed for given names/surnames that can be spelled out using any sequence/combinations of letters".

Meanwhile, are the words in these categories legit entries?

1. Category:Proto-Germanic given names (64 entries)
2. Category:Proto-Brythonic given names (32 entries)
3. Category:Proto-Celtic given names (30 entries)

I would like to see given names/surnames listed only in Category:Surname appendices and Category:Given name appendices. Although information such as those found in Category:Egyptian given names would become lost the information can be migrated to an appendix. KevinUp (talk) 15:08, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@KevinUp Bit late this and I can't speak for Proto-Brythonic/Celtic, but afaik the Proto-Germanic ones all have at least 2 descendants, thus warranting a reconstruction. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:57, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

For now, this vote is a good place to start towards the cleanup and eventual removal of given names/surnames on Wiktionary. KevinUp (talk) 15:08, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

More explanation, please

Given the volume of oppose votes, I suspect that I'm either not reading the proposal correctly or not understanding its implications. Could you give some specific examples (made up, if that's easier) of problems that would arise if this vote passes, please? -Stelio (talk) 12:07, 4 December 2019 (UTC)