Talk:Soong Mei-ling/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Requested move 8 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Strong arguments that the proposed title is the most common name. Jenks24 (talk) 06:38, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Soong May-ling → Soong Mei-ling – Per this Google Ngram, close call but seems that up until her death "Soong Mei-ling" has been the most commonly-encountered spelling of her name. (Though "Soong Meiling" seems to be leading the race in the years prior to 2008, keep in mind it may be the same spelling as "Soong Mei-ling" due to bad scans, line breaks etc.) Anyway it's pretty clear the current title is one of the less popular versions and should be moved to either "Song Meiling", "Soong Mei-ling" or "Soong Meiling". (Personally I feel the "Soong" spelling should be kept over the "Song" spelling so as to be consistent with the article Soong sisters, also see this Google Ngram. As for the Madame Chiang designation common in the west, I think it's quite inappropriate for a title for a number of reasons, including the fact that Chinese women almost never take their husband's family names like Westerners (also see the discussions above.) Timmyshin (talk) 00:26, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

  • Look at her signature, she spelled it "May". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:08, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
    • She signed "Mayling Soong Chiang." You think we should call her that? She might not have signed in English very often. Tasty love salad (talk) 11:59, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Support. The proposed form is what the reference works call her. See Columbia Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia of China. Berkshire Encyclopedia of China and Cambridge Encyclopedia of China by Brian Hook also give "Soong Mei-ling." These are not online, but they are also standard library reference works. Judging from gbooks, the trend in recent years is toward pinyin. Pinyin is our default romanization, so dropping the hyphen is an option as well. Tasty love salad (talk) 10:51, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Politician

Because she never held a political office, I think it's misleading to label her a politician in the lead sentence. Therefore I have reverted to "political figure." Phlar (talk) 10:50, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I saw many first and second generation high-ranking CPC or pro-CPC leader are described as statesman. And some pro-democracy CPC leader (such as Zhao Ziyang) and high-ranking leader of ROC (or Kuomingtang) are described as politican. It's wrong. Her sister Soong Ching-ling was only held some political office of PRC. Soong May-ling's career was also long, she also led and represented the nation at both the national and international level during the WWII. Although she only as First Lady of ROC and had no political office. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.83.69.156 (talk) 14:13, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
Please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~). So what are you proposing for Soong Mei-ling? I do not like "politician" because I think most readers would assume she held a political office, which she didn't. I'm OK with "stateswoman" or "political figure". Phlar (talk) 17:51, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
After further consideration and having reviewed this related discussion, I think the bar for "stateswoman" needs to be set high, and I no longer feel Soong qualifies. Therefore I'm leaving it as it was: "political figure." Phlar (talk) 22:15, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

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Name Change

Her name should never have been changed to Soong Mei-ling. She, herself spelled it as May, not Mei. If the actual person never spelled it Mei, why would Wikipedia go against how a person spells their own name? That is very disrespectful to Madame Chiang to just go and change her preferred spelling of her own name.--Weimin7865 (talk) 09:32, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Title and name

First of all, every biography I've ever read of her spells her name either Mayling or May-ling, so I'm not a fan of the article title and think the move discussion was far too small. Even beyond that, though, this article can't seem to make up its mind just what her name was. It mostly refers to her as May-ling, but then occasionally mixes in Meiling, Mei-ling(!), and Mayling. I'd go through myself, but the strange dissonance of having the article at one title and using a totally different spelling throughout the article body would be too strange for me. I'd be in favor of another RM, but wanted to get input here before doing that and changing spellings; want to avoid the appearance of a fait accompli. For disclosure, I sought input at WT:WikiProject Taiwan. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 1 March 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. WP:Common name is based on independent sources, but the current discussion focused too much on how the subject write her name. As a result, discussion based on independent reliable sources was inadequate to decide whether to move. A future move request should focus on independent reliable sources. (closed by non-admin page mover) ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 14:07, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Soong Mei-ling → Soong May-ling – The RM leading to the current title was essentially unattended, and looking over the rationale it doesn't make a lot of sense. The article subject, who lived much of her life in the Anglosphere and spoke English, always signed her name in English as Soong May-ling, and the current title is a bizarre mashup of Wade-Giles and Pinyin; I dislike Wade-Giles as much as the next guy, but in this case it's how she always spelled her own name. The article should show her name as she spelled it, and explain why later sources used another spelling. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:50, 1 March 2021 (UTC) —Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:38, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. The previous move discussion seemed to conclusively show that the current title is the most common spelling of her name in reliable English-language sources. Even the nom of this RM seems to concede that point. Rreagan007 (talk) 04:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
    I conceded nothing, I only said that the subject herself never used the name once. The several biographies I've read of her use the spelling May-ling; see The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China (which really could have used a copyeditor, good god), Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady (this one says Mayling, granted), The Soong Sisters by Emily Hahn (which uses Mayling, as well; an understandably biased source in many respects, and impressively naive, but a contemporaneous source from someone who lived alongside her), Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang (again, hardly a neutral source but one that consistently uses that spelling), The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave (rather biased in the opposite direction of the previous two), Madame Chiang Kai-shek and Miss Emma Mills: China's First Lady and Her American Friend (also uses Mayling, written by Mills' cousin), and The Generalissimo by Jay Taylor (a WWII historian at Louisiana Tech). Not a single one of these ever even mentioned the spelling Mei-ling or Meiling, neither of which remotely makes sense; Mei-ling is some weird hybrid of Wade-Giles and pinyin that curiously never seems to show up in the sources closest to her or in scholarly monographs. And also, why exactly would Wikipedia go out of its way to use a spelling which an English speaking person in living memory never once used? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:32, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. We should honor her clear preference for the "May" spelling. Plenty of sources use it, as shown in the comments above. Phlar (talk) 20:06, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Reluctant, but nonetheless firm, oppose - I learned Chinese initially in Taiwan during the time when Wade-Giles was common in signage there and am not a fan, particularly I am not a fan of mixing Wade Giles with Pinyin. However the name Soong Mei-ling appears to have been in use long before Pinyin was ever developed, so it is hard to accuse it of this mistake. It may be bad Wade-Giles but this is understandable as at the time it was developed there was very little in the way of standardisation (the situation is similar with Arabic today - look at all the ways Gaddafi is romanised). Whilst you would hope that people writing at the time would have asked her how her name was spelt, apparently they did not do this so we are stuck with many references referring to her by an alternate spelling. Ngrams is not an ideal way of measuring prevalence and certainly should not be the only way in which prevalence is measured, but measuring via other ways shows the present name to be favoured overwhelmingly compared to the proposed name. A search of GScholar hits gives 305 hits for Soong May-Ling and 514 results for Soong Mei-Ling - this seems pretty decisive for the present name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FOARP (talk • contribs) 08:41, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
    For what it's worth, here and here are the best images I could find of how she signed her name in English. Figure that might help. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:52, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Support per nomination and per subject's own choice. "May-ling" or "May ling" is how she always transliterated her name into English, never as "Mei-ling". Her continued and sole use of "May-ling" is recounted in her definitive biographies — Madame Chiang Kai-shek as well as The Soong Sisters. My first choice for her Wikipedia entry's main title header would be her WP:COMMONNAME — Madame Chiang Kai-shek — per the title of her biography, but in this RM, I support the proposed move of Soong Mei-ling → Soong May-ling. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 02:11, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Support - If she had adopted a western name legally and preferred its use, would we not use that? If this were a case where the only use of her name was through translations, I'd oppose, but if she herself used it in English as well, we should follow suit, especially if there are sources that use it as well. -2pou (talk) 17:24, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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