james duffy wrote:
We have a major problem over how to refer to members
of a royal family
other than monarchs. Different people are using any number of
references, structures and names. Do we use (i) surnames or (ii)
titles? What happens if a ''personal'' surname is different to a Royal
House name? (eg, is the former Austrian Crown Prince Otto Von
Hapsburg, Otto von Hapsburg, Otto von Habsburg, or Otto
Habsburg-Lothringen? Which is the Royal House name? Which is a
surname?) Furthermore, putting in a 'common name' (as presumed by a
page writer) is problematic; for example, there is NO such person as
'Charles Windsor', nor 'Anne Windsor' because Windsor is a Royal House
name, not their surname; their surnames actually are different. I have
spent some time checking out the whole issue, including speaking to
the Buckingham Palace press office to get accurate information
re-British royals. I put my suggestion on the history standards page
and so far it has met with general consensus approval, subject to
minor modifications, which I have made. I call it the THREE GENERATION
RULE.
I welcome your enthusiasm to do the work of sorting out this mess. I
know that I have tried to puzzle some of these out in connection with
the [[People on stamps]] articles, only to become thoroughly confused
when I saw the inconsistent treatment that has prevailed on Wikipedia.
If I undertook to track down the proper form in each of these
circumstances, I would accomplish very little indeed. I'm often left
with my own best guess. I basically support this initiative, but will
no doubt have things to say about some of the details.
(1) FIRST GENERATION ROYALS
'Children & siblings of A monarch'' (not just the present monarch!)
should be referred to by TITLE where they have one, or
'PRINCE/PRINCESS OF [country]' where they have no formal title, for
example;
**Charles, Prince of Wales
**Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark
**Philip (or spanish version), Prince of the Asturias (or Crown Prince
of Spain)
**Willem Alexander, Crown Prince of the Netherlands
**Andrew, Duke of York
**Anne, Princess Royal
**Victoria, Princess Royal (daughter of Queen Victoria and mother of
Kaiser Wilhelm II)
**Margaret, Princess of the United Kingdom (daughter of George VI,
sister of Elizabeth II)
**Beatrice, Princess of the United Kingdom (daughter of Queen
Victoria, sister of Edward VII)
REASON: such royals are widely known and so recognised almost
exclusively by name or title. Using standard names (which some
reference books do) won't work on WIki because the vast majority of
its users won't have a clue what their standard name is, particularly
as their actual surname is frequently different to the Royal Family name.
1. We should also try to catch some spouses of a monarch here.
2. The entry for these is not simply [[Title]] but [[Given name, Title]]
3. Some attention should be paid to precedence, with a person being
listed under his or her highest ranking title. That can change over his
lifetime. Charles was not Prince of Wales until 1958.
4. "Crown Prince[ss]" strikes me as a reasonably generic term, that
could be used for any heir apparent to the throne in the absence of an
overriding term. Is it necessarily a title? "Prince of the Asturias"
is unlikely to be a known search term for people outside of Spain. There
may also be an issue about when "Princess" should be written with a
capital "P"; this would distinguish between a title and a description.
5. Do we use the terms "infante" or "infanta" for appropriate Spanish
royals?
6. Since this rule would not apply only to current royal families, there
should be an article for each title in this first group where all the
holders of that title are listed. The pupose of this would be to
pre-emptively disambiguate the title holders. Obviously, doing this may
not be practical when only a description is appended.
7. I hope that there is something simpler than "(daughter of George VI,
sister of Elizabeth II)" to use as a disambiguator.
(2) SECOND GENERATION ROYALS
Those descended from a monarch should be referred to by title if they
have one, by Royal House name (eg, Windsor, etc) IN THE ARTICLE TITLE
if they don't, unless they have a CLEAR AND IDENTIFIABLE SURNAME, for
example:
**Princess Beatrice of York
**Princess Eugenie of York
**Eloise Sophie Beatrix Laurence, Countess of Orange-Nassau
**Zara Phillips
**Princess Anne's children have no title, an almost unique situation.
They are universally known by their father's surname of Phillips, so a
degree of flexibility is required here, but as I say they do SEEM unique.
REASON: such royals are less well known but again are known largely by
name/title. Using a surname would be confusing as many would have
different, largely known surnames. If we use, say, 'Beatrice of the
United Kingdom' that could be mixed up with an earlier one of the same
name. But we can't say 'Princess of York', as that isn't correct, even
though she IS a princess and OF York. Leaving out princess causes
another problem; many in the middle ages called themselves, for
example, 'John of Gaunt', 'Philip of Chester, 'Maud of Lille' etc.
And just using a surname is out because contrary to what some on Wiki
think, Windsor isn't her surname and few would recognise her actual
double-barrelled surname. The view expressed to me was that you need
to clarify her status as a princess and use York to define her. The
general view was in such cases, 'Princess Beatrice of York' is
name-specific, person-specific and the most correct title, clarifying
exactly who she is. And it is workable in all occasions I can think
of. (Sons and daughters of royal dukes and earls use their parent's
title as part of their own. For example, 'Prince William of Wales',
'Prince Richard of Gloucester', etc.) For example,
**Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh (grand-daughter of Queen Victoria)
**Princess Victoria of Connaught (grandaughter of Queen Victoria)
Such figures are unlikely to feature in Wiki, but if they do, it is
worth having a standard structure by which they can be dealt with.
Fine! I look at "Princess" in this context as necessarily descriptive
without suggesting that the person holds that title. The titular
reference following the given name would be to the father's title, again
without any suggestion that she holds that title in her own right. I
would assume from your wording above for Eloise that she actually has
the title, "Countess of Orange-Nassau"
(3) Other Minor Royals.
The Royal House name should be used, for example:
The Earl of Ulster referred to by Royal House (in this case, Windsor)
Where a ''minor royal'' is unambiguously identified by a clear
surname, that could be used. For example
**Viscount Linley as David Linley.
By using a Royal House name, we would be using the name most people
would associate with a monarchy. In Britain, that would be Windsor,
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in Belgium.
REASON: Such royals are hardly known, and rarely by title. But as they
may have a different and almost totally unknown surname, using the
Royal House name may be the most straight-forward way
Having used title or accurate reference in the ARTICLE TITLE, we may
then add in a surname (if we have it, and its not as simple as people
think) IN THE OPENING LINE. I've added two definitions onto Wiki that
can also be linked in for clarity. ROYAL HOUSE means Royal Family
name. So, on a reference to a member of the British Royal Family,
after the name in the text, you can simply add ''of the [[Royal
House]] of [[Windsor]]'' and someone who isn't sure can check to see
what a Royal House is. I've also added definitions for the two British
Royal Family names; [[Windsor (Royal House)]] (the Royal House/Royal
Family name, which is also the surname of some but but no means all of
the family), and [[Mountbatten-Windsor]], the actual surname of
Charles, Anne, Edward and Andrew and all their children, according to
Buckingham Palace.
This seems inconsistent with what you said above regarding the Phillips
surname for Anne's children.
So an entry would go,
CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES
Charles Philip Arthur George [[Mountbatten-Windsor]], of the [[Royal
House]] of [[Windsor]] . . . etc etc
The link to [[Windsor]] would be to a disambiguation page, because it is
also used for a couple of cities.
Redirects should also be created from other names that might reasonably
be used. You'll get an idea of what these are when people mistakenly
use them.
Eclecticology