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Poll deadline: TBD
The examples used below are on Han Gaozu (漢高祖), birth name Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty
1)(XXX) of (name of dynasty) China
2)(XXX) Emperor of China or Emperor (XXX) of China
3) XXX
Han Gaozu above, for example, has two official names: Gaozu (temple name) and Gao Huangdi (高皇帝 -- posthumous name). Some of later emperors have, in addition, era names.
The following is conventions that have been used by Chinese historians and in popular literatures (in both Classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese) for centuries (and still used in all occasions). Those of:
Should the above traditional conventions be employed in Wikipedia? Or do we artificially select one of the above? If so, which one?
Note on redundancy: emperor is the English translation of "di" (or "huangdi" in full).
If option 2) of part 1 is used in combination with option 2) of part 2 ("Han Gao huangdi"), it creates "Han Gao Huangdi Emperor of China". Redundancy occurs. However, although uncommon in native English words, such repetition occurs in proper noun loanwords, e.g., "Sahara Desert".
Are we supposed to answer to this poll? Why is there no response? I dont have a preference, but keep in mind that this handy box will probably be used, making the dynasty clearer.
Preceded by: XXXXXX |
Succeeded by: Jiang |
Actually, I think we should use the Chinese conventions. There should be no redundancy in the title. It should be clear enough in the title that the person was an emperor or king.
--Jiang 09:19 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)
My vote for title:
Reason: Outside of CJKV, there's no convention on this. They use it very arbitrarily. No standard. Not even on Qin Shi Huangdi (First Emperor of Qin Dynasty? First Qin Emperor? Shi Emperor of Qin? According to the new convention, it would probably be Emperor Shi Huangdi of Qin China and systematic) --Menchi 17:21 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)
"{era name} Emperor of China" is inappropriate for the Manchu Emperors because they did not rule only China. The Qing Dynasty preserved Ming's administrative system, but confined it to China proper. Completely different systems were applied to so-called Outer China. Manchuria was ruled by three Manchu generals. Mongolia (Inner/Outer Mongolia, Jüüngharia and Köke Nuur) was ruled by Mongol jasagh. Southern Xinjiang was ruled by Muslim beg. Tibet was ruled by the Tibetan government, headed by the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. Mongolia, Turkestan and Tibet were supervised by generals and ministers (mostly Manchus). Calling the Manchu Emperors just "Emperor of China" hides the characteristics of the pluralistic empire. So it should be "{era name} Emperor of Qing" or just "{era name} Emperor". --Nanshu 00:15 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I think the title most commonly used in Chinese should be adopted -- it should be obvious to the reader that the article is referring to an emperor from China and the "handy box" would indicate the dynasty.
So: Wei Wu Di would be Cao Cao. The first emperor would be Qin Shi Huangdi. We'd have Han Wu Di, Tang Wen Zong, Ming Hong Xi Di, etc. Yuan emperors would of course use their Mongol names. This has the following advantages:
--Xiaopo 07:10, Oct. 26, 2003 (UTC)
Currently somewhat established conventions:
The use of the names of the emperors of the Mongol Dynasty in Wikipedia has been fairly consistent, in that it almost always uses the khan-names, because the official language of the Mongol Empire was Mongolian. They are sometimes referred to by their Chinese temple names.
orry, kt2, I know the above issue [Emperor naming] isn't resolved... Heck, it hasn't even begun. Well, two Canadians can't change the world, can they? ;-) Anyway, here's another issue for all: ....
I prefer State of Han over Han (state). We can avoid creating disambiguations that way. Wasn't it called "Han Guo" as with "Chu Guo"? Why is "guo" left out in all these articles? --Jiang 06:57, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I don't think disambiguation is necessary in this case. For me, it's actually slower to type the 2 parentheses than the 2 letters "of". Not to mention the pipe, so that's one more keystroke (two if you count "shift"). Han (state) may be helpful as a redirect if the context requires it, but the article title doesn't have to look like that. --Menchi 07:11, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Recently came across some very similar counter-examples. All Swiss cantons are named like Canton of Zürich, and not Zürich (canton). --Menchi 07:49, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I might not have understood your post completely, but are you concurring with us? --Jiang 08:33, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I partially agree with your views. Those articles could be renamed in generic fashion for English Wikipedia to "State of (name of the state)" but the disambiguation is still needed. My previous examples pointed out that name of the states (ie. without "Guo") were also employed (and perhaps more frequently) in ancient texts such as 《春秋‧襄公二十五年》:「夏,五月,乙亥。齐崔杼弒其君光。」. 大将军, 都督中外诸军事 (talk) 20:51, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I'll move them. Parenthesis are harder to deal with and I think leaving out the word "state" is seldom done in English. --Jiang 10:07, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Han Gaozu is under Emperor Gaozu of Han China, but the history standard states:
And Han Gaozu isn't mentioned as an exception. So shouldn't it be Emperor Gao of Han China? Currently this is a redirect. --Xiaopo's Talk 02:31, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)
The Qing Dynasty Emperors have had their article names shortened from [name] Emperor of China to [name] Emperor. I propose that we remove the word "China" from all the emperors since the Chinese, unlike the Europeans, dont name themselves after other people. The title does not need to tell all and "China" was not always synonymous with the entire empire. --Jiang 04:31, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The various Emperor articles are badly in need of formatting. For one thing, it is improper to refer to emperors by their reign names as if they were given names (e.g. "The Guangxu Empewas born Caitian" instead of the current "Guang Xu was born Caitian"). The table at articles such as Shunzhi Emperor look clumsy and need to be replaced with the name box proposed above. --Jiang 04:27, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I created Template:Chinese Emperor and tried it there. There are still some problems to be worked out. The full posthumous name does not fit (is it necessary to include it?). I also left out the Zi (is this also necessary?). Should the surname be included and "given name" changed to "birth name"? Please comment and improve.--Jiang 05:10, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
1- a- For emperors before the Ming dynasty, we should definitely leave the articles the way they are now. "Emperor Wu of Han China" is clear and accessible for people with no knowledge of Chinese. "Han Wudi" is just confusing, people may not know that "di" means emperor, and they may end up thinking that Han is the given name, and Wudi is the family name!
b- The recent change to Emperor Gaozu of the Han, now turned into Emperor Gao of the Han, is unnecessary I think. Yes, we should consider him the one exception to the rule of posthumous names before Tang, temple names from Tang to Yuan. In Chinese, he is known as "Gaozu of the Han" (汉高祖) much more than as "Emperor Gao of the Han" (汉高帝) (between 10 and 30 more hits in Chinese google for 汉高祖). Gaozu is not even his temple name actually (temple name is Taizu), but it is the name that was given to him by famous historian Sima Qian in his historical records, and this name Gaozu has sticked ever since inside China. I am of the opinion that we should revert to Emperor Gaozu of Han China.
c-Then for sure the naming of the emperors of the Qin dynasty is a tough issue. Personally, I think "Emperor Shi of Qin China" is plain silly, as "Shi" is not really a proper name, but rather a common name meaning "first". And "Qin Shi Huangdi" is just abstruse for people with no knowledge of Chinese (i.e. 99% of the readers of the English Wikipedia). I would favor naming them "First Emperor of Qin China", "Second Emperor of Qin China", etc. After all that's exactly the meaning that the first emperor intended to convey when he created this naming pattern.
2- For emperors of Ming and Qing dynasties, I think puting the era name (nianhao) before Emperor is a bit contrived and unnatural. We should leave "Emperor Qianlong", as it's the use of writing it in Western languages for decades, instead of writing "the Qianlong Emperor". Yes, technically speaking there's a difference between an era name and the name of an emperor, but what is the name of an emperor anyway? Given that they had so many names during and after their lives, the notion of "name of an emperor" is quite relative. What I know, is that for Chinese people living during Ming and Qing dynasties, the era name was clearly the name of the emperor, it was the name writen on coins, at the beginning of proclamations of imperial edicts, etc. If you had asked an average Chinese person leaving during the Qianlong era what was the name of the emperor, he would almost certainly have answered Qianlong. The personal names of the emperors were taboo, and the posthumous and temple names were not known yet. This is so much true that when the empire was abolished in 1912 and the office of president of China was created, many farmers in the countryside thought that "president" (总统) was the name of the new emperor!! (the subtlety of this will make sense if you know a bit of Chinese) So I suggest we revert to the traditional "Emperor (nianhao)". We can perfectly state inside the articles that "born (xxx), he ascended the throne on (xxx) and became Emperor (nianhao)", which shows clearly that (nianhao) was not his real personal name.
3- a- As for the Template:Chinese Emperor, you should leave "given name", and not write "birth name". Emperors had "birth names" (i.e. "milk names"), which are different from their personal given names, but you would be hard pressed to find milk names anywhere.
b- You forgot a line for "family name" above the line "given name". The template for emperors of Yuan and Qing dynasties should be different however, in that the line "family name" should read "clan name" instead.
c- the line "reign name" should be rephrased "era name". Nianhao are knwon as "era name" in English, not "reign name"
d- Courtesy name (zi) is not necessary, as I don't think emperors had courtesy names.
e- For the posthumous names, I think we should definitely list the full posthumous name (one line below the short posthumous name), if we intend to be a thourough encyclopedia. That's what they do on the Chinese Wikipedia. I do not recommend copying and pasting the full posthumous names of the Chinese Wikipedia though, as I have found errors there. They should be cross-checked with serious Chinese references online or in libraries. Actually, the best would be that a Beijing Wikipedian go to the Ming and Qing tombs and take pictures of the stelae with the full posthumous names for us. That way we would have the exact full posthumous names for sure. Anyone interested?
f- Finally, I would also add a line in the template for the exact dates of beginning and end of actual reign, and another line for the exact dates of beginning and end of era (nianhao), which would help as these two things are so often confused everywhere online (eg. Emperor Daoguang's reign ended at its death on February 25, 1850, but the Daoguang era ended on January 31, 1851, almost a year later) Hardouin 14:10, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
--Jiang 10:32, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
A couple things I'd like to change about the new templates: Birth and death dates are already on the first line and the Dynasty is specified in the lead section, so I don't think they're necessary in the table. For the Qing table, we should call the names given in "pinyin", not "Mandarin." I think we should also include tones on the pinyin. Should Wade-Giles be given coverage at all? Or will the redirect suffice in leading readers of older history books to the right place?
Regarding the Xuantong Emperor, I'm not sure if the article should be moved to Puyi on the basis of "use common names". Is there a precedent? European monarchs revert to monarchial titles (Edward VIII of the United Kingdom instead of Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor), but we have Hong Taiji, etc.
As for contacting professors at Berkeley, I dont think I have enough clout as a lowly undergraduate to make a difference. There doesnt seem to be anyone listed specializing in the field. I could try but I don't know who to contact. --Jiang 23:46, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Just because we're doing it for US presidents doesn't mean we should do it here. On the same note we should also list all the wife and concubines for each emperor. Appeal to tradition isnt by itself an argument and consistency is not an issue because we clearly don't have the same formatting and line items as the US presidents. The problem here is redundancy. There are people who read the article and people who don't. People who read the article will see both and see the same thing both times. It's pointless. Why aren't we also putting the names in the article text too then?
Mandarin is a spoken tongue. It cannot be written. The written language is called Chinese, not Mandarin. We are writing in Chinese and providing a Romanization based on Mandarin. Pinyin is not the same as Mandarin. Calling what is there Mandarin will just confuse people and fail to instruct them that what they're looking at is not Mandarin, but pinyin. Some people probably won't even know it's pinyin. Don't forget those people like me who know the pinyin but are too illiterate to read all the charcters in name. The chances are that people who dont know the Chinese won't be interested in reproducing or memorizing the names in the first place to care about tones. --Jiang 04:47, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
An encyclopedia is supposed to provide a short and concise' summary of the topic. When giving a lecture, it's a good thing to be redundant because people might miss it the first time around, but when putting stuff in print, especially in a context like this one, redundancy is unnecessary. If people don't get it the first time around, they can re-read the text. Our articles are short enough so that missing what little is presented is not an issue. Ambiguity is not the issue here (yes, let's be as unambiguous as possible). Redundancy does not solve ambiguity. Hey, what do I have better to do at 2AM in the morning than to complain about tones on pinyin at some website like this one?
Regarding the Manchu scripts, I think User:Nanshu and User:Mgmei have some experience in the field. They may be worth asking. --Jiang 23:51, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
How are the leaders of these two periods named?
They both, for example have an Emperor Renzong - are they therefore Emperor Renzong of Western Liao China and Emperor Renzong of Western Xia China? Or simply Emperor Renzong of Western Liao, etc.--[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 23:36, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It seems the Julian Calendar is being used for older subjects such as Hongwu Emperor and the proleptic Julian calendar used for even older subjects such as Qin Shi Huang. This is counter to the conventions currently spelled out and I believe this is western-centric. Everything should be in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or Gregorian calendar since the Chinese used a completely different calendar than the Europeans and there's no need for date-matching. --Jiang 10:36, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
User:Nanshu has unilaterally moved all Yuan dynasty emperors to their khan names, which is counter to the "use common names" approach. I don't disgree with his moves, but anyone who does should comment. The standards currently call for templale names to be used for Yuan emperors after Kublai Khan. --Jiang 02:56, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Should traditional Chinese characters be used for articles on history? The set of simplified characters is a relative recent invention, and historical figures never write their names with the present set of simplified Chinese characters in their days.
There has been recent disputes on how Qing Dynasty nobility should be named. These nobles all have quite a few names to choose from. We have decided on three possible methods:
I notice that pretty much no articles on older Chinese history mention the Wade-Giles names of the individuals involved. This seems clearly wrong - our readers are extremely likely to be looking at older books that use the Wade-Giles transliterations, and we should be trying to make this easy for them. Can we add something saying that all names should be given in both Pinyin and Wade-Giles?
(Another issue - I find titles like Emperor Wu of Han incredibly irritating. Couldn't we just put them at Han Wudi? Usually English sources call him "Wudi" or "Wu-ti" and not just "Wu." Failing "Han Wudi," I'd much prefer Wudi of Han to the current formula.) john k 19:18, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
A couple of points here. Firstly: isn't "di" a part of the posthumous name of these emperors? At least, we list it as such. Even if it means "Emperor," that doesn't mean it isn't part of the name. In terms of the "English form," that's bogus - I've never seen the form Emperor Wu of Han anywhere but wikipedia - just because a form isn't fully translated doesn't mean it is not the common "English form." As I said above, I've normally seen Han Wudi as "Wu-ti." As far as not including Emperor, that's absurd. See Caesar Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, every other Roman emperor article, Napoleon I of France, Franz Joseph I of Austria, and so forth. As far as people being confused about "Han Wudi" - that's an argument against using any normal Chinese name, too. Should we have Zedong Mao, as well?
BTW, what are your thoughts on Wade-Giles? john k 06:24, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
To restart discussion, isn't the current format also a "mixture" of the Chinese and English forms?" The proper English translation of Han Wudi is not "Emperor Wu of Han." It is something like "The Martial Emperor of Han," no? john k 16:05, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
If nobody objects soon, I'm just going to start changing things. john k 13:53, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Jiang - I think part of the problem here is the expectation that the article title will do everything. The article title should basically be there to give a reasonably unique and familiar form of the emperor's name. Everything else can be explained in the article text. Han Wudi (156 - 87 BC), personal name Liu Che, was Han Dynasty Emperor of China from 141 to 87 BC. As long as we explain somewhere the longer name information (although, to be honest, I really don't see why this information should need to be discussed in any detail in the articles on individual emperors - it is already discussed in great detail in various articles on name types). Here's what Columbia has: "Wu-ti, posthumous temple name of the 5th emperor (140 B.C.–87 B.C.) of the Han dynasty. Wu-ti [Chin.,=martial emperor] ruled directly through a palace secretariat." This seems a perfectly acceptable way of going about it. Certainly he should be called "Wudi" in the text of the article rather than "Emperor Wu." john k 18:28, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
I think going to "Han Wudi" for title would be going way backwards. No, "Emperor Wu of Han" is not elegant, but at least it quickly conveys, to a non-Chinese speaker, 1) the person was an emperor and 2) the person was of Han Dynasty. "Han Wudi" conveys neither (since it could plausibly appear to be a personal name). I would go along with "Liu Che"; at least that would be accurate and would not be confused for a title, but using "Han Wudi" is just inviting people to mistakenly believe that he's an individual whose family name is Han and personal name is Wudi. As someone who was brought up in Bo Yang's school of thought as far as history is concerned (even though I find myself disagreeing with Bo on a number of issues), I had been an advocate of using personal names, but I do see the practical values in using imperial titles in these articles (and therefore have continued to use them, although, confusingly enough (for me, at least), I am now venturing into the Three Kingdoms period, where the alleged convention is not to use imperial titles). But "Han Wudi" would not accomplish anything; it's not informative; it's confusing; and it has no practical value. --Nlu 10:14, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
If people want to know naming conventions for Chinese emperors, and are confused by them, there are plenty of articles to enlighten them. Who cares if "Han Wudi" could plausibly appear to be a personal name? The article itself, as well as multitudinous other articles on the naming of Chinese emperors, would quickly set someone straight. On the other hand, "Emperor Wu of Han" is incredibly annoying. Especially since such emperors are almost always "Wudi" rather than just "Wu." As Jiang says, personal names are totally unacceptable. john k 07:17, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
We're having a discussion at Talk:Xiao Xian Chun on how to properly name Qing empresses. Based on recent scholarly sources, I would suggest that the above mentioned article be renamed Xiaoxian Empress, but others argue in favor of Empress Xiaoxian. Please weigh in on this, so we can settle the matter and move the articles to a proper place. We need to do something about these articles before the erroneous naming spreads to other versions of Wikipedia.--Niohe 23:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I proposed naming conventions for Mongol rulers at Talk:Yuan Dynasty. If you are interested, please leave your comment. --Nanshu 08:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
This is a really awful convention. Why Emperor Wu of Han China when Han Wudi is both shorter and more familiar? Personally, I think that we should have conventions as follows:
What exactly is the objection to this? I see that this has been suggested before, but never adopted, and I'm at a loss to understand why. It's simple and not nearly as hideous as the current format. Obviously, it is less obvious that Han Wudi was an emperor of China than that Emperor Wu of Han China is, but I think the advantages are well worth this, and we obviously have plenty of articles on rulers where it's not obvious from the title that the person is a monarch. I note, for instance, Charlemagne, Tiberius, Alexios I Komnenos, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, Atahualpa, Mansa Musa, and so forth. The fact that the current convention requires us to use bizarre forms like "Emperor Wu" for the emperor usually called "Wudi" or "Wu-ti" makes the current convention particularly inappropriate. john k (talk) 22:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
The discussion is probably more appropriately raised at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) (which you did so already), and there is some discussion over there right now. --Nlu (talk) 19:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I am interested in getting opinion on the correct location of the articles on Qing empresses which are almost all currently located at hideous violations of pinyin rules. I don't have opinions on the format or even the names themselves so I would like to get some consensus before proposing moves. (But please, no hyphens and no CamelCase!) The articles in question are every CamelCase or hyphenated name plus Empress Xiao Xian and Abahai at Category:Qing Dynasty empresses and Category:Qing Dynasty empress dowagers. If you are interested please discuss here. — AjaxSmack 03:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Move. CamelCase should be eliminated, and so should hyphens for all Pinyin titles. Some articles may be at Wade-Giles names, in which case it should be hyphenated.
A brief google search on Abahai shows almost exclusively copies of the Wikipedia article from various times. A Chinese language search shows that it seems to be the common name for this person in Chinese. Some further research is needed, but I am leaning towards leaving it where it is.
Wan Rong should be at Wanrong, since the two characters form her given name, and not surname-forename. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
On a side note, Category:Qing Dynasty empress dowagers should be moved to Category:Qing Dynasty empresses dowager, because the head is "empress", "dowager" being the modifier. See, for example, this Google books search, highlighting the usage of "Duchesses dowager". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:39, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 20:53, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)#On removing capitalization from "dynasty" in wiki titles
Is there a naming standard for these individuals. Timmyshin (talk) 14:36, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi, I'd like to suggest adding in a section regarding naming conventions for heads of houses of Han, Zhao, Wei pre-Partition of Jin. It's very common to see posthumous names like 趙簡子 translated as Viscount Jian of Zhao, even though the 子 in 趙簡子 is not a title of nobility. What does the community think about adding something like "Pre-Partition of Jin heads of houses of Han, Zhao, Wei should be referred to using their names (e.g., Han Jue) or posthumous names (e.g., Xianzi of Han)"? Hanfresco (talk) 01:12, 19 May 2018 (UTC)