James Duffy wrote:
The problem is that most people where titles are not used see them as some form of foppish irrelevance and don't understand that people in states with titles are often known at different points of their career by personal name only, by title and by a combination of both. It would be nutty, for example, to write an article about 'Henry Coyningham'. He is known variously as Henry Mountcharles, Lord Mountcharles and the Earl of Mountcharles. To stop people writing 'Henry Coyningham' to provocatively cause confusion (as part of their campaign against titles) he ended up having to change his name by deedpoll to Henry Mountcharles but that too doesn't stop confusion among those who have never heard or don't remember his first name but know 'Lord Mountcharles' as the guy who holds rock concerts at Slane Castle and is an Irish politician.
After some discussions with john (I forget his full username, but he signs 'john'), I partially agree and retract my initial complete opposition. However, I also still oppose using titles uniformly, even in cases where they are not the standard way to refer to the person. For example, [[Bertrand Russell]] should be there, because he was not an Earl until relatively near the end of his life, and in philosophy and mathematics journals, where he is best-known, he is almost always referred to as "Bertrand Russell", not as "Lord Russell" or anything of that sort.
I wouldn't object to the first line of the article being "Bertrand Russell, after [[year]] the 3rd Earl Russell, ...".
-Mark