Talk:British people

Confusing
A basic point – what is a 'British' person? – is unclear in this article. The lead defines it with some clarity and the final sentence mentions the diaspora, separating its members from 'the British'. But later there's "Britons – people with British citizenship or of British descent", which redefines 'British', and the presence of a diaspora map in the infobox and a (very long) list of countries implies that the diaspora is also 'British'. I'm confident that there aren't 72 million British citizens (the opening sentence definition) in the US. How we can clarify for readers? EddieHugh (talk) 22:27, 23 June 2022 (UTC)


 * English people tend to think of 'British' as a term invented to be inclusive of the Scots, Welsh, and Irish. Primarily they take it to mean Celtic people, people with hairy legs. Burraron (talk) 15:34, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The lede should simply make this double-usage clear: it can refer to people of "British descent" (English, Scottish, Manx, Welsh, other historical British Isles) or it can refer to people of British citizenship. DenverCoder9 (talk) 02:46, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 September 2022
I wish to hyperlink the name of the author of reference number 236, as a Wikipedia page has been created for that author recently. DetuchVonzer (talk) 06:10, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Ferien (talk) 17:16, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 28 September 2022

 * 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: not moved. (non-admin closure) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 14:41, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

British people → Britons – Per WP:CONSISTENCY, WP:CONCISE and WP:COMMONNAME. Nations that have a singular non-gendered unambiguous name are usually labelled as such. Only in cases where such a form doesn't exist, as with French people, Dutch people or Japanese people, is the form "foo people" used. This is a common name as well, see Ngram results. Privybst (talk) 09:48, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced. What is the consistency argument? "British people" is hardly lengthy or cumbersome. Briton may well be a common name but, as an article title, has the disadvantage of ambiguity, in that the Ancient Britons are commonly referred to simply as Britons; I imagine this will have influenced your Ngram result. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:16, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ...so Oppose Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:28, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Mutt Lunker that is what I mean with the consistency argument: User:Privybst/UN member states nations. Privybst (talk) 08:14, 29 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I am also unconvinced owing to the confusion with Ancient Britons. As per Mutt Lunker, these are commonly just referred to as Britons, and importantly, this page does not treat them as such in its present form, concentrating only on the mix of all ancient peoples that make the British People. This page is correctly about the British people and would need rewriting under a different name. I think it would be confusing and unhelpful to make this change. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:22, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose as per confusion with Ancient Britons and seeing as there is not necessarily strict continuity between modern British people and the ancient Britons. Bayonet-lightbulb (talk) 14:06, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose puke-inducing. Laurel Lodged (talk) 15:30, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Why is it "puke-inducing"? We are Britons! I'm not sure I agree with the proposed move, but this is a bizarre and frankly infantile response that deserves to be ignored by the closer. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:38, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. A hatnote at the top of the article pointing to Ancient Britons takes care of any concerns of confusion. And I really don't think most readers are confused by this anyway. Most English-speaking people use the term "Britons" to be synonymous with British people. Just like even though technically the term Americans can mean anyone from North or South American, most English-speaking people use it to refer to people from the United States of America. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:27, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose, for the confusion reasons above. Bazza (talk) 17:22, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose - unnecessarily ambiguous, and page titles are intended to disambiguate. Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:40, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Shwcz (talk) 20:09, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * oppose what century are we talking about here—blindlynx 02:35, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Once again, "Britons" is a perfectly normal and accurate term in the 21st century for people from Britain. You'll find it in any dictionary. There is no other single-word demonym for us. You don't say "Britishman" or "Britishwoman", do you? It's no weirder than German, American or Italian (or Canadian or Ukrainian). -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:13, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Everyone I know says “British”. That is what is on the UK census too, for that matter. I checked the ngram you posted, clicked on the most recent date for Britons, the first hit was and the second was, supporting my suspicion that the most common modern sage of “Briton” refers to the ancient celtic Britons only. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:31, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed, it is another "perfectly normal and accurate term" and it is not "puke-inducin n g" but the issue is as to whether it is a preferable term to the existing title. Per above, it is not. Mutt Lunker (talk) 09:58, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * My point is that you don't say "a British", like you say "an American" or "a Canadian". British is only an adjective, never a noun. If you want to use a single noun, you say "a Briton". There's nothing wrong with the word and it's completely current. I would happily describe myself as either British or a Briton (or English or an Englishman). As I said, I'm not sure I agree with the suggested change, as British people probably is the commoner term, but to describe it as "puke-inducing" or to say "what century are we talking about here" is ludicrous and fairly insulting to Britons. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:57, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I know that is your point, those are the very things I was referring to when I said "agreed". And we are also agreed that that does not tip the balance in favour of the proposed change. Double-agreed, hooray. Mutt Lunker (talk) 12:17, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Note that I was replying to Sirfurboy, not you, hence my original indentation which you then altered! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:03, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, there's clearly been an element of misunderstanding but, as Sirfurboy made no ref to the "puke-inducing" comment and I did, it was reasonable to assume that that, at least, was addressed to me. In regard to whether this proposal is worthy of adoption, the three of us are evidently not in support. Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:31, 29 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. "Britons" is ambiguous as against Ancient Britons, and is not obviously the most common name.  The current article title is the most natural and accurate reflection of its contents. Tevildo (talk) 18:05, 29 September 2022 (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.

Number of British citizens in the United Kingdom
I don't want to get into complicated discussions here, but British people in the UK are clearly the entire population, except for those who do not have British nationality. So, according to the House of Commons Library, there are only 6 million people in the UK who are not British nationals. So if we take that number and subtract it from the total population determined by the World Bank (the same source used in the article), we get 61,326,569 British in the UK.

House of Commons Library:

[https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06077/#:~:text=There%20are%20fewer%20foreign%20nationals,population%20is%20concentrated%20in%20London. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06077/#:~:text=There%20are%20fewer%20foreign%20nationals,population%20is%20concentrated%20in%20London.]

The World Bank:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=GB Lewishamsmith (talk) 00:59, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Logical though this is, we can't do it. Please read WP:SYNTH. You can't use numbers from two different sources to calculate a new number that is not in a source. If a published source has done some calculation, you an cite that. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:52, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Is simple math WP:SYNTH? The chart doesn't show this because a chart showing what "100%" looks like isn't very helpful, so the number is the British diaspora (e.g., includes Australians of British descent living in Britain, but excludes British citizens of non-British descent.) DenverCoder9 (talk) 03:03, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The calculation is simple, the contention behind it is not and is unsourced. Mutt Lunker (talk) 10:05, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

This is a mess
This whole article is in need of a complete rewrite. It is way out of date on recent Archaeological discoveries and on modern DNA research. There is too much reliance on books by TV presenters rather than historians in the references. Panama1958 (talk) 05:40, 15 July 2023 (UTC)