The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: NOT MOVED. Consensus that there is no clarity from reliable sources on the "correct" name - WP:COMMONNAME and precedent default to no move.(non-admin closure) Ganesha811 (talk) 20:19, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ethel Hedgeman Lyle → Ethel Hedgemon Lyle – See the above discussion; apparently her sorority has been mis-typing her name for 100 years and is just now trying to retcon everything. (please do not ping on reply) Primefac (talk) 15:29, 4 February 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 06:26, 4 March 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 02:56, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• For the record, I'm mostly on the "status quo" side of the fence (see my 21 Jan comments in the top section about Google and COMMONNAME); it would also be a bit awkward if a school was using the wrong spelling of her name. Primefac (talk) 15:53, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • True, but that school was created by Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sorority Inc. themselves (through one of their alumni chapters) during the time that they were using Hedgeman. (I normally avoid "Sorority, Inc." but in this case it applies specifically to the Incorporated entity)Naraht (talk) 16:34, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Paine's analysis below. Primefac (talk) 15:07, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment: I don't have a firm opinion one way or another. This might be a stretch but WP:NAMECHANGES could apply here, which says that sources written after a name change should be given more weight than sources before a name change. Assuming that this counts as a name change, we still might have to wait considering how few sources have been published after the change. WP:COMMONNAME is the strongest argument against the requested move, but it does mention that "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." Perhaps AKA is a reliable enough source for determining that "Hedgeman" is inaccurate, and thus should be avoided even if it's more frequently used in RSs? Also, since most people searching for Lyle on Wikipedia are probably affiliated with AKA, who would now be using the spelling "Hedgemon", perhaps the naturalness naming criterion ("The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for [...]") applies? That's mostly speculation though, I guess I'm just trying to come up with the best available support arguments considering the pretty glaring COMMONNAME oppose argument. Alecnotalex (talk) 17:52, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, in this case, you have the "Hedgemon" as indicated in the Howard University sources while she was a student, but I have yet to find any sources that indicated that she personally used "Hedgeman" at any time during her life, so I'm not sure that WP:NAMECHANGE applies. Since this is a case where Alpha Kappa Alpha started using an incorrect spelling and then changed back. So, the question is what sources support "Hedgeman" at this point? (and given that at this point (unlike a week ago), the Hedgeman occurances on the web only outnumber Hedgemon by about 2-1, the question is how close does it have to get to equality before COMMONNAME no longer applies as an argument?Naraht (talk) 18:36, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    You're right about NAMECHANGE, it doesn't really make sense here; my thinking wasn't that her name ever actually changed, just that the name used by the organization (which is about as close as we have to an "official name") changed. The fact that all sources published during her life say "Hedgemon" is a pretty strong case for the move. I think the COMMONNAME oppose argument here is that even though we have reason to believe most of the sources cited in the article, along with pretty much all RSs published in the last ~50 years, use the wrong name, it's still a majority of sources using the name. Comparing Google search results for "Ethel Hedgeman Lyle" to "Ethel Hedgemon Lyle" gives me a ratio of about 34:1 (14,100 to 411). Google Scholar comes up with several publications that use "Hedgeman", but none that use "Hedgemon". Same with a search in Google Books. It does make sense to overrule that majority since those RSs are based on a source (AKA) that we now know to have been mistaken, though, and since all recent sources have started using "Hedgemon" again. Alecnotalex (talk) 19:29, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It seems fairly clear-cut to me on the evidence presented. The only consideration is what the accurate spelling is. Wikipedia should be having accurate information that is verifiable. Counting Google Web hits is an absurd way of deciding anything, given how the Google hit count is made up. Deciding to repeat an error because it is "common" is entirely wrongheaded — People don't want encyclopaedias to be in the business of reinforcing incorrect information because it is merely popular (not that Google hit counts tell you this — They aren't actually counts, for starters.). They come to encyclopaedias to find out what's correct. If the accurate spelling is "Hedgemon" then that's what Wikipedia should tell people. As for the "but Google Books!" argument: Do not count the hits: look at what the books actually are. Chamblis Bullock 2014 is on the first page for me. It is self-published by an amateur historian who was a Sorority officer, via AuthorHouse. The very next one down, Banks Gayden 2014, turns out to be another amateur historian Sorority member using AuthorHouse. Actually read the book, even only as far as the blurb on its cover, and it becomes apparent that these books only exist (and have the same publication year) because the president of the sorority requested that chapters produce some history books.

  A useful trick that I sometimes employ is adding "inpublisher:university". In this case it yields books with likely better quality scholarship. At least it yields books that cite their sources. Checking out the first one in Google Books' list reveals that its own source is another book from a Sorority historian, published by the Sorority itself back in 1975. Marjorie Holloman Parker was at least a credentialed historian. But Google Books doesn't tell us what spelling MHP used, or what relationship MHP's scholarship had to the earlier 1948 Life of Alpha Kappa Alpha's Founder Given against Colorful Historical Background or to the Personal interview with EHL by one Sallie C. Boyer in a 1941 edition of Ivy Leaf and what spellings they used. (These sources are cited by Clark Hine, Barkley Brown & Terborg-Penn 1993, p. 25.) It may in fact be that they, too, used the accurate spelling. But it seems more likely, given that sources all seem to come back to 1920s articles in Ivy Leaf by greater or lesser routes, that there isn't even a good source from a credentialed expert that cannot be found to have been influenced by an Ivy Leaf mistake a century ago.

  Never count search engine hits. Always read. Counting Google hits is not research.

  • Chamblis Bullock, Fannie (2014). Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Gamma Delta Omega Chapter: Seventy-Five Years of Timeless Service. AuthorHouse. ISBN 9781496900371.
  • Banks Gayden, Lorraine (2014). The Alpha Kappa Alpha Presence in Southwest Mississippi: Timeless Service of Phi Mu Omega. AuthorHouse. ISBN 9781491853467.
  • Holloman Parker, Marjorie (1978). Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority: In the Eye of the Beholder. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
  • Clark Hine, Darlene; Barkley Brown, Elsa; Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn, eds. (1993). "Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority". Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. Carlson Publications. ISBN 9780926019614.
• Uncle G (talk) 09:37, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you for this. I'm quite new so I didn't know how policy was to be interpreted. I was under the impression that there were two issues here, one of what her real or "official" name was, which should be identified within the article as her real name, and another of what the article should be titled, which is supposed to be the most commonly recognizable name (even if not official). I'm assuming that I was wrong in applying a rule that was intended for issues like "aspirin" and "acetylsalicylic acid" to an issue of accuracy. (edit 17:04: changed example) Alecnotalex (talk) 16:56, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This isn't a debate about a drug or company, it's someone's name. If this discussion determines that her name was spelled with an "o", then we'll move the article accordingly; we wouldn't keep the "a" just because there are more Google hits. Primefac (talk) 17:13, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This is more or less why I included all of the references which occur at Howard University (including her in the graduation commencement program) *before* Alpha Kappa Alpha started publishing how her name was spelled. If someone has a source from somewhere other that traced back to Alpha Kappa Alpha which occurred before 1914 (to pick a date), at that point a discussion of what her actual name is would seem relevant, but much later than that, you end up with the question of whether the name just comes from Alpha Kappa Alpha's corporate screw-up. I've looked for copies of the "Ivy Leaf" online, but have not found many, and none which can be easily searched for text. And as a note, if we do move it to Hedgemon, the Hedgeman spelling should be kept as an R from mispelling.Naraht (talk) 19:17, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Came here to close, and decided to dig some instead. Found a pretty convincing spelling of her name and added the external link to the article. Please see Ethel Hedgeman Lyle at Find a Grave. Seems her family would have been making some change as well if EHL's name had been misspelled on her tombstone, don't you think? Based upon this bit of knowledge, I say we put off changing the title until better evidence is found. Gutsy lady if I may say so, she was a bit fragile, and yet nothing seemed to stop her. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 21:07, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, for now at least. Using Newspapers.com, I looked for contemporary-ish results for both "Ethel Hedgeman" and "Ethel Hedgemon". Looking at the period from 1902-1952, there were 33 matches for "Hedgeman" and 27 for "Hedgemon". My non-scientific scan-through of the results suggests that they are all or nearly all about the subject of this article. The earliest result is a "Hedgeman" from 1902 in the St Louis Dispatch]. I would be happy to provide more clippings of the articles if needed. I don't think we can determine, based on the evidence we have on hand, that one spelling or the other is "correct". I'm not seeing, in the comments above, anything that suggests that the predominant usage of "Hedgeman" is based on a mistake. I therefore think we ought to use the spelling most common in the sources, "Hedgeman", for the title and include both spellings with an explanation about the discrepancy. Firefangledfeathers (talk | contribs) 20:01, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]