Category talk:Human name disambiguation pages

Title
If possible, could you create one page with every single ambiguous name in it so that I can use it for my own uses? Thanks. Tom Sayle 18:39 25 June 2008

What's an "ambiguous human name"? SlimVirgin (talk) 07:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It's the style adopted after folks thought that the more accurate "Lists of ... sharing the same title" was too long. That style is seen in roads and highways.  Those roads and highways folk tend to favor technicality over convenience (from my view, that's a good thing, but I didn't prevail on that argument for this category).  So, they're ambiguous, and human names, and that seems to be enough for most folk.
 * --William Allen Simpson 07:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I still don't understand what it refers to. Does it mean people who share the same name, or what? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Pages with lists of these ambiguous human names are in this category. It's so obvious to me that I'm not understanding the lack of understanding.  Look at the lists, perhaps your fresh perspective could write a better description.
 * --William Allen Simpson 05:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It is possible that ambiguous, while probably the best single word to describe the concept, doesn't quite get the message across. Ambiguous doesn't really mean "names that are the same or similar". I suspect the wording was taken from "disambiguation", which means to remove ambiguity. However, it is not the names that are ambiguous, rather the names are imprecise. Maybe this is a confusion arising from the differences between imprecise and ambiguous. Carcharoth 16:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Following those links above, I found Information_retrieval and Lexical ambiguity (found at ambiguity. [Isn't wikipedia wonderful? :-)]. I suggest (tongue-in-cheek) that the category be renamed: "Lists of lexically ambiguous human names that form the basis of imprecise information retrieval attempts". Carcharoth 16:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation page styles
(Copy of a question I posted at the Help Desk and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography)

I have been looking at several disambiguation pages for names (to get some ideas following work I did on Ptolemy (disambiguation)), and I've come across pages like Jesus (disambiguation) and Leonardo (disambiguation). Some questions I want to ask:

(1) The Leonardo (disambiguation) page has a bit allowing people to see all articles starting "Leonardo", or rather to see a list of AllPages starting from Leonardo, as seen here. This is the first time I've seen this, though the Leonardo disambiguation talk page led me to Robert, which does look a bit overdone, but also has the "AllPages" link. My question is whether this is a common practice, or whether it falls foul of the "no self-reference" rule about not linking to non-article space in Wikipedia (creates problems with mirror/redistribution sites)?

(2) Is is normal to (like I have done with Ptolemy) to arrange the disambiguation page in a historical sense, thus bringing out a narrative about the name throughout history, and tracing the links that sometimes exist, with certain uses of the name being inspired by one Ptolemy, and other uses being inspired by other Ptolemies? I ask this question because I feel a similar reorganisation of the Jesus disambiguation page could help make it easier to read as an article about the history of the name, rather than as a disambiguation page. Note that this could not be done with pages like Robert, as there is no such narrative thread to pull out of the history of the name.

(3) Is there a better place to discuss this?

[Additional comment - I've found Category:Lists of ambiguous human names and its template tag. I can't work out the best place to discuss that sort of thing? Maybe I should go to the People Portal?]

Thanks. Carcharoth 19:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I like Ptolemy (disambiguation), but it's much more than an disambiguation page, it's really a summary style or multi-stub page, so it currently shouldn't have the disambig tag (see Disambiguation).


 * (1) No, the allpages list isn't usual. Bad idea.  All those pages should be listed on the disambiguation page.


 * (2) As with many of the single name pages (Category:Given names and Category:Surnames), split the summary page to Ptolemy (name), leaving only the disambiguation list at "(disambiguation)". Same with Jesus.


 * (3) Let's discuss it here for now. Otherwise, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography seems a good place to discuss the parts regarding (name) pages, while  Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) is where to discuss things like the allpages list.


 * Keep up the good work!
 * --William Allen Simpson 07:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Just did the fairly simple spit from Robert to Robert (name) as an example.
 * --William Allen Simpson 08:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the advice and the suggestions about where to discuss things. I'm now losing track of where I asked about this, so I am centralising discussions at Talk:Ptolemy (disambiguation), where I have also summarised the editing and discussion history so far. If you have any more advice or comments, I'd be grateful if you could place them there, as well as saying there where you think discussions of various issues should be taken. Thanks. Carcharoth 00:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguating John Kelly
The discussion at Talk:John Kelly may be of more general interest. -- User:Docu

Given name disambiguation pages
What's the story with disambiguation pages for given names? Take for example the Larry page: The only ones that should definitely be in there IMHO are:
 * Larry Fine, one of the Three Stooges [and even then, I'm not convinced this one should be there]
 * Cyclone Larry, the category 2 cyclone that made landfall in Australia on March 18, 2006.
 * Larry of Ed and Larry on The West Wing

It seems likely that people will search for them with the name "Larry". The others are just a collection of people who happen to have Larry as their first name, and it seems unlikely anyone would look for them under their given name.

Does anyone have any suggestions for where I should voice a proposal to remove disambiguation links for people based solely on their given name? Chovain 03:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It's been discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) -- JHunterJ 23:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Does this page actually have a point
I don't see why this page exists. How many people look at it? What is the point of it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.34.49.241 (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

Only one as far as I know, but if any others view it, heres what this page is for- correcting any mistakes I make. —Preceding undated comment was added at 14:46, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Given names?
Despite Category:surnames is belonged under this category, why Category:given names isn't subcategory of this?--Ræv (talk) 04:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Category:Surnames should not be a subcategory. Back on August 3, 2007, a user added "Category:Lists of ambiguous human names" to "Category:Surnames" without any discussion, and I would have corrected that at once if I had been watching. As it is, I just corrected it. Please read MOS:DP to see the reason for this. Chris the speller (talk) 17:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Middle names?
When we have more than one Rebecca Grant, actress, could we list middle names on the disamb pages to more quickly direct the humans to the sites more relevant to their interests? Hcobb (talk) 17:51, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Question about formatting of the disambig pages for peoples names
There appears to be two styles for presenting disambig pages:
 * One applies Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages to be used for displaying people's names, considering the first article of the name (without a parens identifier) to be the "main" topic and other uses of the name "subtopics", such as: this version
 * Another lists all uses of the name in a list, like this version

What is your recommended approach?

If it's a list of all uses, rather than following main/subtopic guidelines, I volunteer to tackle reversion of the disambig page formats assigned to this category over a period of a couple of weeks or so.

If it's the use of main/subtopic, I'll revert the Samuel Hawkes (disambiguation) page.-- CaroleHenson  ( talk ) 21:43, 6 June 2013 (UTC)