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Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Wikipedia's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Wikipedia policies of Wikipedia's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

Would it be possible to clarify the policy concerning place names, notably those of islands? I ask because there were a few moves back in October which seem odd to me, but there don't seem to be rules here governing their written names. Consider the following:

• Ōnohara → Ōnohara-jima
• Tokunoshima → Toku-no-shima
• Chiringashima → Chirin-ga-shima

For the first, I'd be prone to use "Ōnohara Islands" (and strangely, the user who made this move also changed Sakurajima to "Sakura Island"), but I'm split on the other two because they contain genitive morphemes: hyphens, no hyphens or anglicization? — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 03:10, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we need clarity on this, but my preference would generally be to retain the Japanese names, with a hyphen if and only if the suffix is optional. That is, "Ishigaki-jima" since it's called Ishigaki as well, but not "Miya-jima" since Miyajima is always Miyajima.) Sakurajima falls clearly in the latter camp, and there's no way the most common English name is "Sakura Island", unless Hiroshima's now "Hiro Island" as well. Jpatokal (talk) 11:00, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is my preference as well. -shima, -jima, can usually be considered part of the proper noun forming the name of the island. i.e. "Ōshima" is never "Ō Island" - it would be as ridiculous to rename "Fukushima Prefecture" as "Fuku Island Prefecture". Japanese anglicizations, official or otherwise, are often inconsistent. Perhaps whether or not to use hypenization can be settled by consensus, but in any event I do not feel that "Sakura Island" is acceptable from either a common usage standpoint or from the MOS. --MChew (talk) 06:57, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, that's what the article was renamed (see Sakura Island). I personally feel that it's strange and that such literal translations should only be noted in parentheses, perhaps beside the Kanji as is done on the Tokyo article. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 00:34, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A problem I'm seeing with any consistent policy regarding "islands" in Japan is that the Japanese word 島(shima, -jima) is used a lot for places that in English we can't reasonably call "islands", at least as a title. See for instance Okinotorishima. elvenscout742 (talk) 05:59, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As long as -shima, -jima are regarded as part of the proper noun, this should not make a difference. The article can simply be named Okinotorishima, without translating a portion of the name to English, and comment made in the article that it is official considered an island by the Japanese government, but that the designation is disputed by other parties. No need to use "Okinotori Island" or "Okinotori Rock".--MChew (talk) 07:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But the article already does say "Okinotori Island" in its body: the title doesn't, but would you suggest we change the body of the article? elvenscout742 (talk) 11:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. And this avoids the dispute over whether it is actually an island, an atoll, a rock, etc. --MChew (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think we've got something close to consensus here! How's this for wording? Jpatokal (talk) 22:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Islands should be named X Island if common usage does not require appending -shima/jima/tō (島): Okinawa Island, Ōnohara Island, Rebun Island. However, use the Japanese name complete with -shima/jima if the suffix forms an inseparable part of the name: Ōshima, Miyajima, Sakurajima. Do not use hyphens or spaces to separate particles or suffixes: Tokunoshima, Okinotorishima, Chiringashima. Notable exception: Iwo Jima, which has a well-established spelling in English.

What is meant by "common usage"? Some English sources say Okinotorishima and some say Okinotori Islands, and very few of the examples you list are "widely-known" outside Japan, so your wording would acutally require us to move these pages. elvenscout742 (talk) 04:08, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just go by how the Japanese refer to the location. I know none of my colleagues refer to Sesoko as Sesokojima when they're talking to each other in English.—Ryulong (琉竜) 04:43, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

→ WP:COMMONNAME. On Google, Okinotorishima gets about 500k results, vs a mere 12k for Okinotori Islands, so the winner is pretty clear. And yes, the line is fuzzy and there will be debates, but I think that's preferable to having no policy at all and ending up with Sakura Island etc. Jpatokal (talk) 23:43, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The only problem, especially for lesser-known places, is that the results will be heavily based on Wikipedia. Though otherwise I do agree with the common name rule, as this resolves cases like Fukushima, Ōshima and Okinawa Island. If, however, there are two forms in competition, then it may be preferable to mention both in the lead, and choose one to unify the name within the article.

As for the hyphens used in some names, I assume we should opt to remove them (especially so in cases with internal morphemes like Tokunoshima)? But what do we do about articles seemingly using the translation "Island", as in Hisaka Island or Kashiko Island? Should we impose the English word if the island is really not that known in English literature? Or should we do the opposite, and impose the usage of, say, Hisakajima? — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 02:11, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia influencing itself is a general problem and WP:COMMONNAME has suggestions for working around it (namely use Google Books and Scholar, not the net at wide). For Kashikojima, I'm pretty sure the -shima is integral; for Hisaka, not sure. And as always, if we opt for X Island, the Japanese name should be in the lead. Jpatokal (talk) 04:34, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bump -- any more comments, or is this good to go? Jpatokal (talk) 00:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You might find Template:Google RS (and related templates) useful for researching majority usage in reliable and widely-respected English-language sources (but not Wikipedia). It would be quite easy to create a template that searches Japanese government and semi-governmental English-language sources like the JNTO, plus the Japan Times. There's also a tutorial on doing searches that exclude Wikipedia, for example. LittleBen (talk) 03:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I posted the below comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan and a number of users responded. Before it turns into a full blown MOS-amendment debate, I decided to move it here. Basically, we are discussing whether the rules for naming articles on Japanese municipalities should be changed. elvenscout742 (talk) 00:54, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Manual of Style says that we should For cities, use the form [[{city-name}, {prefecture-name}]]; for example, Otaru, Hokkaidō. Exception: For designated cities, use [[{city-name}]] without appending the prefecture unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary.

I can understand the exception for designated cities, although I think it would be better if we made the exception for cities that have the same name as their prefectures and used, say, Okinawa (city).

However, a more significant issue is one I recently raised in the current move request at Talk:Kamakura. We have a huge number of articles on Japanese municipalities where either they are the only usage of their name, or they are the clear primary topic, and so we have [[Name of city]] redirecting to [[Name of city, name of prefecture]]. This seems somewhat counter-intuitive, since the only reason we need the prefecture name is for disambiguation. Other countries' municipalities don't seem to follow this convention (Tubbercurry, Huludao, etc.), so why do we? Having a redirect from a simple form to a complex one just seems wrong...

elvenscout742 (talk) 01:15, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't a similar issue happen with the names of several United States municipalities? For example, the city of Orlando in Florida is clearly the primary usage of "Orlando", but the article is still located at Orlando, Florida, because of some weird pre-existing standard on when you only refer to a city by its name in the American press. I don't see why Japan should be treated any different.—Ryulong (琉竜) 02:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Japan isn't America. The Chinese and Irish examples I gave demonstrate that this is not some Wikipedia-wide thing (or at least it doesn't appear to be), so why should we apply the weird pre-existing standard on when you only refer to a city by its name in the American press to articles on Japan? I'm not sure where that American standard comes from, but mightn't it have something to do with America's status as a federation of what were originally independent states? Japanese prefectures have never really worked that way, anyway. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:13, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

With U.S. cities, there is often another town somewhere in the world with the same name. In particular, there are British editors who feel that the "original" town in England should be primary, for example Boston, Lincolnshire as opposed to the one in Massachusetts. With Japanese cities, I don't think we have to deal with any of that kind of nonsense. Kauffner (talk) 04:46, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree wholeheartedly on this one. There's no good excuse for applying U.S. geographical terminology outside the U.S.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:39, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Before I continue, Elvenscout may I ask why you brough this discussion here instead of WT:MOS-JA in the first place? This seems to be an issue with the manual of style rather than one that needs some sort of pre-argument with the WikiProject. And secondly, I never said that the standard exists and is because of the American MOS. I'm saying that a similar issue happens with American cities. For whatever reason, it was decided (at the MOS page) that only the cities that fall under the umbra of City designated by government ordinance need only be referred to by their singular names, unless there is some need for disambiguation from other topics (although I don't know why we have Shizuoka, Shizuoka and Saitama, Saitama). The example you give for Okinawa, Okinawa might be suitable, as might be removing the prefecture names from other prefectural capital articles, unless, again, there might be other article that there's disambiguation needed (eg. Matsuyama, Ehime). I am not sure the same can be said for all the smaller cities and towns dotting Japan (eg. Ginowan).—Ryulong (琉竜) 02:32, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We have Shizuoka, Shizuoka because you moved it there less than a week ago.[1] Lord knows why, though, since Shizuoka City seems much more logical. Unless you're from the U.S., I suppose.

Ryulong, you seem to be at least somewhat familiar with the dealings here. Why doesn't the MOS-JA simply say "use <place name> for unambiguous place names and disambiguate in other cases according to the following stnadard"? What's the point of names like Shibuya, Tokyo, Moriyama-ku, Nagoya, Kōhoku-ku, Yokohama, etc?

Peter ^Isotalo 15:46, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I brought this here rather than to WT:MOS-JA because I was not proposing a change to the MOS. I wanted to ask members of the project why the rule is this way in the first place. elvenscout742 (talk) 04:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, we shouldn't be using disambiguators just because there is possible ambiguity. Where there is ambiguity, we should establish if there is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I think since Matsuyama, Ehime is a prefectural capital, it is likely a primary topic and would be moved to Matsuyama if the guideline were to be changed. elvenscout742 (talk) 04:40, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Matsuyama" is a common Japanese surname.—Ryulong (琉竜) 04:52, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but it's unlikely that any one person named Matsuyama is a more primary topic than the city. In fact, I just noticed that right now Matsuyama redirects to Matsuyama, Ehime, which just seems bizarre to me. English Wikipedia also apparently only has three articles on people named Matsuyama at the moment. elvenscout742 (talk) 05:19, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You know, you're right about all of this. It's unnecessary to have disambiguators for unique city names. The wards that Peter Isotalo points out are a different story (although arguably "Shibuya" is the primary topic).—Ryulong (琉竜) 06:52, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We probably should take into account, though, that when there are "wards" in a Japanese "city", that "city" is in some ways run like a prefecture, and those wards are effectively run like municipalities. In fact, Shibuya (and Shinjuku, etc.) is officially designated as a "city" in English.[2] (The ku also all function similarly to municipalities, in that alien registration and numerous other functions are performed at the "ward office", or in Tokyo the "city office", rather than the shiyakusho.) elvenscout742 (talk) 03:41, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Summary: a renaming project would achieve conformity to various MOS, but it would be a misguided use of time and resources.

The project would require careful research and evaluation of a very large number of articles in order to rename, disambiguate, and provide data clean-up to all the articles which contain a link to a municipality. This would indeed achieve conformity to the Wikipedia standards.

However, the larger issue with Japanese municipality articles is that they're a big collection of stubs. Articles on municipalities often consist of only a few sentences and typically have outdated statistics. These articles also have the crappy situation of high readership statistics, but little useful content for the reader. There are few editors expanding content on municipality articles outside of the tourist cities (Kamakura, Kyoto, etc.). The rest are in sorry condition, and the time required to rename most of the municipalities would be better spent on article expansion.

Question: what's more important to English-language readers of Wikipedia: renaming articles, or actually discovering content in those articles?

Expanding these article is what I'm going back to this morning. I wish others would do the same. ---> Prburley (talk) 14:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ironically, the article for the city of Okinawa mentioned in this discussion is a stub article. As is the article for the Okinawa Islands. The article for Okinawa Island is brief, and the article for Okinawa Prefecture hasn't had any expansion of content beyond a few sentences in years. All have a high readership. In lieu of a renaming project and discussion thereof, would anyone care to expand these articles? ---> Prburley (talk) 14:50, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While I do agree with everything you have said, I have to point out that "we have better things to be doing with our time" is not a good reason for fixing the MOS. The only immediately necessary concerns if we were to amend the MOS would be moving the actual pages, which I can't believe would number more than around 1,000. Fixing redirects can be worked on later. Additionally, having the MOS say something is different from immediately forcing everyone on Wikipedia to stop what they are doing and fix a bunch of MOS violations. Anyway: I'm moving this discussion over to WPT:MOS-JA as per Ryulong. elvenscout742 (talk) 00:54, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"We have better things to do" is kinda self-defeating. It would be like arguing that anyone opposing the suggestion should go fix articles instead of debating the issue.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:25, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose If we amend the MoS, there would be a lot of exceptions. As far as I know, there is no exception with the current MoS. It is very reasonable. Possible exceptions are Fuchū, Tokyo and Fuchū, Hiroshima, Date, Hokkaidō and Date, Fukushima, Izumi, Osaka and Izumi, Kagoshima, etc. See ja:同一名称の市区町村一覧. As for the city and the prefecture of Shizuoka, they should be like Hiroshima and Hiroshima Prefecture. Oda Mari (talk) 06:02, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • We already have exceptions for designated cities, which is really a pretty arbitrary choice when you think of it. The only thing we would need to do is to add a general rule along the lines of "use just <place name> if the name is unambiguous or a primary topic, in other cases, see the disambiguation rules". Where do you foresee problems with that kind of rule? Peter ^Isotalo 11:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I do not feel that there is anything wrong with the current MOS, and the "city name, prefecture name" is clear and unambiguous. If anything, I would support doing away with the arbitrary designated cities exception, and standardize the format on "city name, prefecture name" in all instances for consistency. Making exceptions based on what individual editors consider "primary usage" is opening the door to POV --MChew (talk) 07:10, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  So you suggest moves of Tokyo to Tokyo, Tokyo and Kobe to Kobe, Hyōgo? At least with the designated cities we know that these are the primary usages of these names.—Ryulong (琉竜) 08:06, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Primary meaning has to be decided in all cases. It's not a matter of "POV" but practicality. If naming has any bearing on the issue, it's like to influence doubt in clear-cut cases like Tokyo or Kobe. Peter ^Isotalo 11:16, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Tokyo is not a city - it is a prefectural-level municipality, and thus there would not be any "Tokyo, Tokyo". But I can still see no compelling argument to change the MOS. --MChew (talk) 14:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • See question below. And what's the deal with trying to characterize WP:PRIMARY as a POV-problem? Since when did a low-level MOS become a yardstick for neutrality? Peter ^Isotalo 17:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Question to those opposing. I browsed through Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) and noted that there are really only two countries listed there that don't use the common-sense rule of "use <placename> unless disambiguation is needed": the United States and Japan. We all know that "<placename>, <state>" is the standard in the U.S. It's not the standard for Japan, however, and Japan doesn't differ very much from other countries. I would really like to know why the U.S. formula is being forced here. Peter ^Isotalo 11:16, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that there is some confusion between WP:PRIMARY with WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. But why object to the current MOS simply because it parrots the style of the US formula? What difference does that make? The Japanese addressing system per Japan Post is based on <prefecture name>, <municipalty name>, <locality address> with the order typically reversed when writing roman letters to suit Western convention, so this format "City, Prefecture" is common in Japan. I still do not see argument that changing the MOS will result in any benefit. Under the present system, there is continuity for all municipality articles and no possibility for disambiguity, with any potential issues over WP:PRIMARYTOPIC easily handled through a disambiguation page. --MChew (talk) 16:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and so is the same for the postal system of every other country in the world as far as I know. So what? In Ireland the postal system goes <locality address>, <municipality name>, <county name>, but Irish articles don't include the county name for every municipality article. The current system is not a "problem", per se, but it also isn't standard on Wikipedia, and there still doesn't seem to be a decent rationale for why. Having the simplest form redirect to a page with a disambiguator is counter-intuitive. The exceptions Oda Mari brought up above are a valid concern: we can discuss what to do about them in order to disambiguate them later -- parenthetical "(city)", parenthetical "(city in Hokkaido)", parenthetical "(Hokkaido)", or even keeping the current formatting. But for now we should be addressing the large number (majority? I'm not even sure...) of municipalities like Morioka that have this extremely silly problem. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The guideline currently forces us to find out if the person has (or had, if they have passed on) a personal preference (most Japanese don't); then check "encyclopedias" (most have their own spelling conventions, that don't necessarily jive with ours); then check if there is a form "publicly used on behalf" of that person (again, freelance translators and the like have their own preferences); and only if none of these apply are we allowed use our systematic spelling convention. This policy is excessively vague, and in the fast few months has been interpreted in all sorts of ways leading to a large number of ridiculous move requests.

I propose we alter it to say "Unless the person has publicly stated that they prefer the non-macronned spelling, use the macronned spelling."

This would allow us to avoid excessively elaborate interpretations of the people's "personal preferences", etc. as seen here and here, and would allow us to be internally consistent. Additionally, the mention of "encyclopedias" in the MOS, and "reliable sources" in numerous move discussions, seems irrelevant here, as this is not a case where we are dealing with a danger of OR or the like -- we are merely writing Japanese words in the roman alphabet, and we need to decide whether we want a systematic, accurate romanization, or to rely on "reliable English sources".

elvenscout742 (talk) 04:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is completely useless. If their official site has them using "O" or "Ou" or "Oh" or "Ow" we use that spelling first. There is no reason to completely throw out an entry in this manual of style because you personally think that it is difficult to determine what is and what is not in use. If the use changes, or if the use is not clear, then the pages should not be moved. But if it is all that is used, that is what Wikipedia should use. Macrons should always be the last resort because they are generally unprintworthy.—Ryulong (琉竜) 04:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But what about when their official page is entirely in Japanese and they just chose to use a particular spelling in the URL because they can't use Japanese text (or macrons)? Also, what if there is a blatant contradiction between one official source and another? It seems perfectly clear to me that the majority of Japanese people don't care one way or the other, and their names get spelled based on the priorities of freelance translators, web designers, book publishers, newspapers etc. We can never have a clear-cut "this person obviously prefers the macron" (except in cases where we have photos of their signature), because their official homepage will always have a non-macronned URL. Additionally, why should we apply a different standard to people than we do for places? Most Japanese municipalities have official websites that give at least the name of the city/town/village in roman letters, but they almost never use the macron. elvenscout742 (talk) 05:23, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no English, go with WP:COMMONNAME. If there are contradictions, go with the macron. It's that easy. And we use the same criterion for places. If a city is solely known as "Kobe" when its Hepburn form is "Kōbe", then "Kobe" should be used.—Ryulong (琉竜) 05:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But these Japanese people don't have "English names"; they are just romanized Japanese names that all use the same romanization system, and are spelled either with or without the macron according to style preferences. The romanization system itself, though, uses macrons as a rule. WP:COMMONNAME clearly doesn't apply here because, as the examples make clear, that rule is for cases where there is an overwhelmingly common English name that differs from the accurate/official name. Most Japanese people are not discussed extensively enough in English sources to qualify for this, and when we use Japanese-language sources we are still supposed to use the macron for accuracy anyway. Your "Kobe" example is flawed, since it is discussed in probably millions of English sources; try Ōshū, Iwate or Ōtsuchi, Iwate, both of which have official websites that spell their names with no macron[3][4], but both of which have a macron on Wikipedia because there aren't enough sources in English that don't use the macron (and the websites aren't in English either way). elvenscout742 (talk) 05:40, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Any English text that occurs in conjunction with their name is the best that we can do. I've seen people's names written with macrons. I've seen them without. I've seen "Syu" over "Shu" and "ow" over "ou", "oh", or "o". All that matters is that we have reliable sources that show this usage. If they don't exist, then we cannot make the determination ourselves and go with the macron form. Why does this need to be changed other than the fact that you are disagreeing with the outcome of two requested moves? If it's not broken, don't fix it. Because they are modern figures they clearly have romanized names in usage in some form and therefore we do not need to use the Hepburn romanization system, a form used by scholars of the Japanese language, to refer to them. And we go beyond a single URL to determine usage, and in the cases of those cities then we should probably move to the non-macron forms just as we've done for all of the Hokkaido pages.—Ryulong (琉竜) 05:58, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for being late. I was delayed. Anyway, if that is the rule (use whatever English text occurs in official sources) then why don't we follow it except for people? The basic guideline as defined in the MOS is to use Hepburn (which includes macrons), and "modern people" and "companies, products, and organizations" are listed as exceptions. But what about place-names? Why does Kobe have no macron but Hyōgo Prefecture, despite the latter's official website not using it? The fact is that almost all Japanese words that include long os and us can be found in some reliable source that spells it with and macron, and more that spell it without. But WP:RS doesn't need to apply here, because reliability is not the issue; this is solely about our choice of style. Sorry to go back to the Neighbourhood example, but the results speak for themselves: 14,800,000 < 49,200,000, but Wikipedia doesn't make style choices based on numbers reliable sources. Anyway, I have indicated elsewhere[5] that I would not mind editing Wikipedia under a "no macrons in titles rule", but having one rule for people/organizations and another rule for places just seems weird. elvenscout742 (talk) 04:34, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Your neighbourhood example is former-British-Commonwealth English vs. US English: I believe that the rule is to use whichever is appropriate for the subject matter.
• As Ryulong says, there have been previous discussions like this and this. I believe that Japanese are allowed quite a bit of leeway as to how they write the romaji version of their name in their passport, but I think it's fair to say that few people use macrons. Stations are another matter: JR writes Tokyo station with a macron, but the Marunouchi subway doesn't. LittleBen (talk) 03:39, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The neighbourhood example was for article titles. There is only one article called Neighbourhood, and its title doesn't seem to be affected by subject matter.

As far as I know, Japanese aren't allowed use macrons on their passports. However, very few Japanese seem to care about how their name is spelled in roman letters, since 99.999 times out of 100 they write their names in kanji, hiragana or (god help them) katakana. Accurate romanization of those names, according to a standardized system, should be a priority for us. The general Wikipedia policy on this is at MOS:FOREIGN: Use a systematically transliterated or otherwise romanized name (Aleksandr Tymoczko, Wang Yanhong); but if there is a common English form of the name (Tchaikovsky, Chiang Kai-shek), use that form instead.

elvenscout742 (talk) 04:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find this guideline specifically mentioned here: am I missing something? There appears to be overwhelming consensus on this convention, so can we just add it in? It was recently brought up[6] that a page with "Sugawara no Takasue" in its title should remove the "no" because Britannica doesn't use it. I wanted to point out the relevant guideline here, before noticing that it wasn't here. Should we include it? Or should we start work on moving Sugawara no Michizane, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, Fujiwara no Michinaga, Minamoto no Yoritomo, Kamo no Mabuchi, ... ? elvenscout742 (talk) 07:49, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, anyone have a problem with me adding "For the names of historical figures who are conventionally referred to as A no B, follow this convention." to the page? elvenscout742 (talk) 01:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In an article including a number of both post-1868 and pre-1868 born individuals, I'm supposed to mix name orders? Really? That strikes me as a "worst of all worlds" take on things, practically guaranteed to cause misunderstandings. Cckerberos (talk) 15:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Use the full names once and then solely use the family names after. Problem solved.—Ryulong (琉竜) 15:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In most cases, you're probably right. In this case the article includes a list of names, though. That's how I noticed. Cckerberos (talk) 21:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Solely using the family names is not necessarily a good idea because so many Japanese people have the same names and a lot of people are primarily referred to by their given names in reliable sources, but I agree with Ryulong on the principle here. It's not really a problem for the reader anyway: it feels awkward for me too, but Japanese-speaking readers are likely to think it's kinda weird and quirky, and everyone else is probably not going to be bothered by it. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I might be missing one here, but I think the current guideline to use hyphens before gū kind of screws over these particular classes of shrine. "Tōshōgū" and "Tenmangū" are each one word, and hyphenating them just looks awkward. I am fairly sure the reliable sources will agree with me on this, but I am still trying to figure out how to limit my GBooks and GScholar searches to English...

However, official sources linked to the most famous tōshōgū and tenmangū generally don't use hyphens before the gū.[7][8][9][10]

elvenscout742 (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• See the links to previous discussions that I added to the Islands and Names of modern figures discussions above, also see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)/misc25#Jingu and -gu. LittleBen (talk) 03:52, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since my concern is specifically with the hyphen and not about whether to translate, etc., I searched the archives for "hyphen" before posting here. The link you provide shows both you and Dekimasuよ! apparently indicating a distaste for the hyphen, and no one supporting it. So can we change this guideline? elvenscout742 (talk) 04:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the issue is essentially the same as the Island one above. It's surely best to follow the majority of reliable sources rather than try to create rules (that there will inevitably be exceptions to). Few people seem to have the time or energy to try to bring the guidelines up to date (User:JoshuSasori seemed to have the experience and energy, but...).   LittleBen (talk) 04:45, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Just tried the archive search box and it seems to be broken. The archives seem to have two URLs: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)/misc and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)/Archive ... LittleBen (talk) 05:10, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]