Mark Williamson wrote:
It seems a bit -- forgive me -- daft to use the number of Google hits for non-English WPs... how could that possibly be relevant?
Mark
If someone is considered important enough to have their/its proper name mentioned in, say, the German or French WPs, even in passing, they probably have some significance that transcends national boundaries.
For example, try
site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Albert Einstein" -- 46,100 hits site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Kofi Annan" -- 9,240 hits
but
site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Monty Python" -- 608 hits site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Britney Spears" -- 519 hits site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Harold Wilson" -- 335 hits site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Samantha Fox" -- 86 hits
and
site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Robert Kilroy-Silk" -- 12 hits site:wikipedia.org -site:en.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Carrot Top" -- 4 hits
and, of course, it works the other way:
site:wikipedia.org -site:de.wikipedia.org -site:www.wikipedia.org "Bernd das Brot" -- 9 hits .. hooray!
However, results from WPs with non-Latin scripts might be less useful, as they are more likely to transliterate names.
-- Neil