Talk:Côte d'Ivoire/Archive 2

Côte d'Ivoire missorting cleanup is needed
Will somebody who supported the use of this non-English name please go through and fix the sorting of all articles using Côte d'Ivoire anywhere in the article name, so that they sort correctly in categories?

Don't forget that subcategories also need to be sorted correctly. For example, Category:Rivers of Côte d'Ivoire needs to appear above Croatia in Category:Rivers by country.

I'm getting sick and tired of making such corrections myself. What's wrong with you people, anyway? Gene Nygaard 13:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm curious - exactly why is routine piping of categories the fault of a "non-English name"? We'd have to do exactly the same sorting if we used "Ivory Coast"... 21:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
 * No, we don't. The name "Ivory Coast" contains only English-alphabet letters, and it would sort just fine in almost all cases where "Côte d'Ivoire" remains missorted, often appearing after Croatia, after Cyprus, after Czech Republic.  You can see this by looking at Category:Communications by country and seeing where the subcategory Category:Communications in Côte d'Ivoire is missorted (even though the sorting of the article of the same name has been fixed—can you see the difference in order?).  Or you can see it by looking at Category:Nations at the 2004 Summer Olympics and seeing where the article Côte d'Ivoire at the 2004 Summer Olympics is missorted.
 * There are hundreds of those problems out there. Why don't you make yourself useful, and go fix some of them?  Gene Nygaard 00:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Interesting; I'd have assumed (letter-with-diacritic) was sorting the same as (letter), since IME that's usual English practice. Will look into filing a bug report over that, which would seem to be a more efficient solution than manually fixing every incidence where a diacritic appears... Shimgray | talk | 15:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know why in the world you would have assumed that, if you'd ever looked at any categories. People have discussed it and filed bug reports for years.  It isn't likely to change soon.  Just get out there and fix it.  Good grief, not only does "Côte d'Ivoire" come before "Croatia" in English indexing, it does in French indexing as well, so this isn't one of the cases with fools arguing that something other than English indexing should be used.


 * In other words, there are still one hell of a lot of articles and subcategories out there with "Côte d'Ivoire" in the article names that remain missorted. Yet all the people who insist on having this article at a foreign name are nowhere to be found, when it comes to cleaning up this problem.  Why is that?  Gene Nygaard 20:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Why is Category:Olympic competitors for Côte d'Ivoire still missorted in Category:Olympic competitors by country? Where are all the people who insist on putting this country under a foreign-language name when it comes to cleaning this up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gene Nygaard (talk • contribs) 23:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC).

Comment

 * 1) Perhaps we should move Germany to "Deutschland" or China to "Zhongguo". And what about Switzerland? We could move it to all sorts of places: "Schweiz", "Suisse", "Svizzera", "Svizra", or even "Helvetia". Backspace 04:47, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to enter the discussion about the name but just a quick comment on this : (thereby contravening the standard rule in French that geographical names with several words must be written with hyphens) I don't know this rule... Where does it come from ? I'm speaking French as a mother language, you've got : Saint Martin, Côte d'Opale, Côtes d'Armor... I think, it's when you add two geographical names to make a third one that you've got the hyphens like in Seine-et-Marne...Cperroquin 23:48, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Normal French usage requires a hyphen between the elements of compound names for political and administrative bodies (see fr:Trait d'union). Thus, you have fr:Saint-Martin (île), fr:Côtes-d'Armor, fr:Pas-de-Calais, etc. There are no hyphens in fr:Côte d'Opale because it is not an official region. So the rule exists, although I would agree that it is not always followed. Lesgles ( talk ) 20:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me totally neo-colonial and essentialist to have a picture of a person and then subtitle it "Ivorian woman." What are we supposed to be looking at? A picture of any European or North American, for example, with the caption "German woman" or "Canadian man" would obviously seem ridiculous. Why does it not seem so here? Is it her clothing we're supposed to notice? How about "Woman in Ivorian dress"? Tcwing (talk) 00:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)T. Chapman Wing

Vandalism
-Hey, y'all might want to stop quibbling about the title of the entry for a sec and look at the supposed motto on the sidebar. I'd fix it if I knew what the slogan actually was. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.127.209 (talk • contribs)
 * Got it. It was vandalism just added. -Patstuarttalk 06:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Vietnamese and Demographics
67.150.4.128 wrote "Vietnamese is the major Asian group." in the middle of Section::Demographics, statement was removed; this might be worth verifying. --McTrixie/Mr Accountable 20:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

language list
I tried to remove the long list of translations of the county name with links only to other languages. but I couldn't because I don't know how its included. some odd template but I can't find it. it's currently under external links but there seems to be no point in keeping it. --193.10.145.150 11:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed, it's listcruft in need of a prune. Half a dozen examples in the languages most associated with the regions should be enough. Would like to know what it is in Elvish, though. Rexparry sydney 11:00, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The list dates back to when there was a fight over whether to call the page "Ivory Coast" or "Côte d'Ivoire". The Ivory Coasters protested when Côte d'Ivoire won out and, in a bid to show that only English-langage us were conceding to the Ivorian government's nomenclature demands, added the long list. — Brian ( talk ) 11:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Official language
Official language does not appear on the English-language article, though it's found on the edit page! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.36.157.143 (talk) 21:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Lebanese in Côte d'Ivoire
I would see
 * Chris Bierwirth. The Lebanese Communities Of Côte D'Ivoire.African Affairs 98:79-99 (1999). and  for more current refs (Lebanese merchants return to northern towns after the Civil War, see:
 * COTE D'IVOIRE: Sleepy rebel capital slowly wakes up to peace. 18 June 2003 (IRIN).

I'd be curious to know what ideological position the person saying "There are no Lebanese in Côte d'Ivoire" represents. Lebanese nationalist who denies emmigration, Ivorian nationalist who denies immigration, pluralist who denies national difference in Côte d'Ivoire? Interesting T L Miles (talk) 15:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Sport
Something on Ivorian sport please. Their team has been in the rugby world cup at least once. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.176.60.161 (talk) 22:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Recently added update of subdivisions of this nation
In the French article of "Côte d'Ivoire", I found something that's mostly current in terms of local government:


 * On April 1 2008 the county is divided into 19 régions, which are subdivided into 80 départements, which are later subdivided into 386 sous-préfectures, that are subdivided into more than 8,000 villages, 2 districts and approximately 1,000 communes or municipalities.

However, I couldn't find some info related with this yet so I'm not sure for now. jlog3000 (talk) 14:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

"Windward Coast"
The term "Windward Coast" (a former name for this area) redirects here, but is not mentioned in the article. It should be. Badagnani (talk) 05:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Why why?
Why is this article such a vandalism magnet? --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 00:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * To get your attention, I'm sure. Bastique demandez 00:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Coat of arms
The coat of arms in the infobox is not the current one. According to Coat of arms of Côte d'Ivoire it was valid till 2001, when it was changed. But I have no idea in what way it was changed. Does anybody know?

On the shield is or, but I have no idea whether this is intentional and the main difference to the old coat of arms or whether it's just a random variation. --:Slomox:: &gt;&lt; 15:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

As the helpful folks at Wikimedia commons have decided that the coat of arms of Côte d'Ivoire was under copyright to a Russian website (since they copied it from Côte d'Ivoire) they have kindly deleted all versions of it. As a stopgap measure, I drew one from the link you gave above. Someone with more talent should update it as necessary at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cote_dIvoire_coa2001.png. Best of luck, T L Miles (talk) 17:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

free license photos available
This user at Flickr has a number of photos which are CC-BY licensed (and thus available to upload to http://commons.wikimedia.org. He has a pile of picture (somefreely licensed, some not) of the CI national squad training in Abidjan, dignitaries and celebrities, and the city. I've got other stuff to do, but any image by this user with the little "(BY) Attribution  Some rights reserved " tag can be uploaded and used on Wikipedia freely. Have at it. T L Miles (talk) 02:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal
I suggest this article to be renamed with the English name Ivory Coast. That is the native English name and there is no need to use the French name. Regards.--  MacedonianBoy Oui? 22:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I invite you to read the archive, where this has been discussed to death about fifteen thousand times already. Shimgray | talk | 22:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have read them but found nothing reliable. There are too many countries with different constitutional names, but the English language uses different versions. Such cases are with Finland (Suomi), Albania (Shqiperie), Greece (Hellas), Ireland (Eire) and so many.--  MacedonianBoy Oui? 22:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, does this have anything to do with your opinion on the Republic of Macedonia naming issue? Let me remind you that in this case it'd mean to deny the right of the country to determine it's own name - isn't this something you're fighting against? -- L a v e o l  T 18:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 2007

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

no consensus Patstuarttalk 05:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire → Ivory Coast. It's time again.


 * 1)  Côte d'Ivoire is not English and is in violation of Naming conventions (use English) (and Côte d'Ivoire is not quite French, the official language of Ivory Coast [that would be Côte-d'Ivoire])
 * 2)  Côte d'Ivoire violates Naming conventions (geographic names) which states that, "The title: When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. This often will be a local name, or one of them; but not always."
 * 3)  Côte d'Ivoire is less commonly used than Ivory Coast and violates Naming conventions
 * 4)  Côte d'Ivoire violates guidelines such as Guide to writing better articles ("Non-English words should be used as titles for entries only as a last resort") and Guide to writing better articles (// is supposed to be English?)

In addition, there are many other excellent reasons and statistical evidence presented above and in Talk:Côte d'Ivoire/Archive1

The primary argument for Côte d'Ivoire seems to be that the Ivorian authorities have dictated the usage of this form and that the UN concurs. Howver, Wikipedia is not beholden to following the dictates of any specific regime nor is it a manual of diplomatic protocol. It freely uses common English terms such as South Korea, East Timor, Brunei, and Vietnam that are in violation of UN and/or official usage. And other language Wikipedias do the same with Ivory Coast (see above). —  AjaxSmack     08:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * In fairness, the above paragraph does not correctly state the "primary argument". The real primary argument is that in this day of age, "Côte d'Ivoire" really has become the slightly more common usage in the English-speaking world, and "Ivory Coast" to many sounds almost as antiquated as "Upper Volta"... I still have not seen a convincing demonstration that "Ivory Coast" enjoys wider usage in the 21st century. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Survey
Add  or   in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation (with further comment in the "Discussion" section), then sign your opinion with

Move to Ivory Coast.

 * 1)  Move as nominator. —   AjaxSmack     08:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Move per nom (especially WP:UE) - Evv 21:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Support. One of the biggest problems is that the advocates of using the foreign name are never to be seen when it comes to getting related articles to sort properly in their categories.  Gene Nygaard 01:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Support --Yath 00:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) Support per all the reasons stated by the nominator, far mor common English name. TJ Spyke 07:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * "Ivory Coast" is definitely not "far more common". The current name is actually now more common in English. --Polaron | Talk 07:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Support. Use the English form... when it exists! Švitrigaila 09:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive; it doesn't matter what this country "should" be called in English (by whatever authority one happens to choose), only what it is called. I believe the evidence shows that it's most commonly called "Ivory Coast", and so there it should go. Bryan 06:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Which evidence would that be? All I've seen indicates the opposite. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Support English usage; it may be it will change, as the oppose votes suggest, but it hasn't. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Support. Per nominator. I've never heard it called anything else in normal usage. Proteus (Talk) 08:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Support- English use only in the English Wiki Astrotrain 09:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Support-We don't use Norvgad for Norway, or Deutschland for Germany, or any other local name, we use English.Cameron Nedland 14:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) Support: Wikipedia does not use the official name of the country for article title, it uses the most common short form in English. The article will still give the official name at the beginning, probably in the first sentence. Jonathunder 14:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 6) Support the move: Even taxi drivers from the Ivory Coast in New York City call it "Ivory Coast" when speaking English. The only point is what the English name of the article should be. We are NOT implying anything about the "rightful name" of the country. Officially, it's "Cote D'Ivoire in all languages", which the article has always said. If they want to be cute, we should describe their cuteness; we need not abide by it; our standard is: what do most English speakers call it? --Uncle Ed 17:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 7) Support. If and when it becomes more commonly used, I will support it being at the present title. Deb 11:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's clear that most English speakers call it Ivory Coast. When I was in an English-speaking African country, speaking English with English-speaking Africans, we all called it "Côte d'Ivoire".  The google test isn't the be-all-end-all, but "Côte d'Ivoire" gets four times as many hits in a search restricted to Enlish-language pages (see Discussion section below).  It also gets more hits on US government pages.  It seems to me that WP:COMMONNAME comes down on the side of "Côte d'Ivoire". -GTBacchus(talk) 21:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Grillo 22:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC) (it's called Ivory Coast in English, period)
 * What's your evidence for that claim? It seems to me that it's called Côte d'Ivoire in English, based on what I've seen in this discussion.  "Côte d'Ivoire" outpaces "Ivory Coast" by 4 to 1, on English language pages. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Support as per nom, and, for the sake of English Wikipedia, not getting pushed around by national naming and/or spelling issues.-- Matthead discuß!    O       13:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Support strongly ... it is a ridiculous assertion that says pronounced Cote d'Ivoire in English, English is English.  Every country has a different name in other languages.  What, are we supposed to move Germany to Deutschland, and force the Chinese language version of Wikipedia to change "Mei Gou" to "United States of America?"  User:Vsevolod4
 * 3) Move —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robscure (talk • contribs) 00:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Strong Support Ivory Coast is the English name and we are all English speakers. The article on Germany is not titled Deutschland, nor is France titled République française. The article should definately be moved to Ivory Coast. --For Queen and Country (talk) 18:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep at Côte d'Ivoire.

 * 1) Weak keep - I urge voters to have a good look through Talk:Côte d'Ivoire/Archive1 for previous discussions. I care not a whit for the 'Official' government request - my argument (see Archive1) is that neighboring anglophone countries like Ghana use the French form. Weak only because I am tired of this discussion.. Wizzy…  &#9742;   09:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep: The arguments to keep at Talk:Côte d'Ivoire/Archive1 not countered yet. It's "Côte d'Ivoire" for English speaking Africans like me who've actually been to the country. -- Jeandré, 2007-01-08t20:21z
 * 3) Keep here, as endlessly discussed before. When a country changes its name from an archaic English name, we use the new name; our articles talk of neighbouring Ghana and Burkina Faso, not neighbouring Gold Coast and Upper Volta. Shimgray | talk | 20:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Keep this is it's UN sanction official name that even the United States government as well as the UK acknowledge and use. I think that is good enough for the English encyclopedia. 205.157.110.11 21:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) Keep "Ivory Coast" is no longer the most common name in official use by the UN and the US State Dept. as well as others. --Polaron | Talk 15:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Rather misleadingly put. Ivory Coast is still in common use by the U.S. Department of State, however, as these hundreds of hits show. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gene Nygaard (talk • contribs) 09:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC).
 * "Cote d'Ivoire" is still more common by at least 4:1 --Polaron | Talk 21:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment If you restrict your search to .gov sites, you get 153,000 for "Ivory Coast" and 211,000 for "Cote d'Ivoire". -GTBacchus(talk) 20:44, January 10, 2007 (UTC)
 * Last time I checked, Wikipedia does not need US regime approval for article titles. —  AjaxSmack     23:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't suggest that we do. I'm just pointing out another indicator of usage in the United States.  I've yet to see any indicator that "Ivory Coast" is more common among English-speakers. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Lukewarm keep. Even if Ivory Coast is still prevalent, Cote d'Ivoire is steadily gaining ground, so if we move it, we'll probably just have to move it back in the future. -- Groggy Dice T | C 21:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * What is your evidence that it's "gaining ground"? Bryan 06:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Keep per Shimgray. This is the proper name of the nation. GassyGuy 01:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep - As I wrote above, Côte d'Ivoire is the official name in all languages. The CIA World Factbook lists the country by that name as well as FIFA amongst others. Argentina means "silver" in English, and yet no one calls it that in English. Similiarly, the "Rio Grande" isn't called the "Great River". Seems perfectly logical to me to extend the same courtesy to Côte d'Ivoire. -- Exitmoose 07:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, English speakers call Argentina Argentina and Rio Grande Rio Grande but they call Ivory Coast Ivory Coast so you just made a case for moving the article. And "courtesy" is not relevant since Wikipedia is not a Ivorian regime agency or a diplomatic manual. —   AjaxSmack     23:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The evidence I've seen indicates that more English-speakers call the country "Côte d'Ivoire". Per WP:COMMONNAME, so should we. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * What evidence? Considering Côte d'Ivoire has non-English letters (ô) and sounds (/vwaʀ/) to start with it seems unlikely English-speakers outside of official circles would indulge in such exercises.  Media actually read by civilian English speakers continue to use Ivory Coast (see here). —   AjaxSmack     23:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The evidence I'm talking about is that there appear to be four times as many English language pages in Google's index containing "Côte d'Ivoire" than there are containing "Ivory Coast". I've also seen plenty of maps and such publications - printed in English - calling the country "Côte d'Ivoire".  Under the link you provided, we learn from one commenter that all of the textbooks in his school library that were published in the last 10 years call it "Côte d'Ivoire".  Also, I've travelled in Europe and Africa, and had conversations with English-speakers in English, and in every case, we called it "Côte d'Ivoire".  I particularly remember my Nigerian roommate in Kenya, who didn't speak French, but called the country "Côte d'Ivoire".  These conversations were quite "outside of official circles".  Perhaps it's surprising that so many English speakers are willing to utter a French-sounding name, but it's true nevertheless.
 * I grant that we also have evidence that, in many publications, "Ivory Coast" is more common. I don't, however, think we can estatblish that it's the more common usage among English-speakers. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Keep per official recognized name. Doing google searches for hit count is almost pointless, because the name change is so recent.  Older references will not have changed, and to expect every other online presence to be able to react as swiftly as we are capable of is highly optimistic.  The US gov't (for example) has recognized the new name, but, as pointed out above, there are still some lingering usage of the antiquated name (many of the cited hits are transcriptions of verbal exchanges, and many of them are questions from press members, etc... ). Neier 08:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep Per Neier use official name--Barrytalk 14:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Keep per Barry. Bramlet Abercrombie 15:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Keep. Why is it that if one side doesn't like a vote result, we have to keep voting until they get the result they want? But when they do like it, then it's final, eh?  Maybe we should hold regular elections on the title of this article once every four years?  ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) Strong keep - In October 1985 the government requested that the country be known as Côte d'Ivoire in every language, without a hyphen between the two words (thereby contravening the standard rule in French that geographical names with several words must be written with hyphens). AJAXsmack, you must understand that the guidelines mentioned above respect official namings. Many "support" votes above do not understand that the official name of this country is Côte d'Ivoire and think it is only a French transliteration. Please do not confuse proper names w/ the rest, otherwise we'd be needing to replace Nike, Inc. w/ Victory Inc..-- Szvest  - Wiki me up ®  19:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a diplomatic handbook and is not required to follow the dictates of any regime. Many of Wikipedia's articles are at unofficial names such as South Korea (not Republic of Korea), East Timor (not Timor Leste), Soviet Union (not Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), Kiev (not Kyiv), and Washington, D.C. (not District of Columbia). —   AjaxSmack     23:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Who cares what the régime of Ivory Coast says?Cameron Nedland 01:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Keep – I do. Since there is no convincing evidence that "Ivory Coast" is more widely used than "Côte d'Ivoire" among speakers of English worldwide, I see no reason to defy the government's request and possibly provoke political controversy.  I don't regard news reports as "convincing" because the language conventions of news agencies are determined by centralized editorial boards, which may or may not make their decisions according to what is most popular. Plus, there are hundreds of millions of English-speakers outside the West whose language conventions are ignored by the Western media. -- WGee 04:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep - this seems to be by far the most common usage worldwide, and is also the official name according to the many sources cited by others. Do any major international organizations call it Ivory Coast? Tuf-Kat 16:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Keep. Two common names, of which this is the official one. Prolog 00:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Keep. It may have been better known as "Ivory Coast" in the past but Côte d'Ivoire is clearly now the acceptable name. Per the country's request, governments and news services now all use that term and it therefore is the appropriate way to refer to the country in English. WJBscribe (WJB talk) 18:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) Keep per above. Baristarim 21:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 6) Keep as Cote d'Ivoire; the Wikipedia is not a repository for anachronisms. --McTrixie/Mr Accountable 02:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 7) Keep - this is what most of my peers call it. Dmn € &#1332;&#1396;&#1398; 11:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
According to advanced Google search there are 5.430.000 hits for "Ivory Coast" on English pages, and 21.900.000 for "Côte d'Ivoire". So Ivory Coast is less commonly used than Cote d'Ivoire. -- Vision Thing -- 20:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * In this case, how do Google hits reflect usage for encyclopedic purposes? I.e., is it necessarily relevant to Wikipedia? (cf. fart vs. flatulence) —   AjaxSmack     23:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * We often use Google to measure usage on the Internet. It's a pretty imperfect measure, but I'm not aware of a better one that we can access, and I've yet to see any measure according to which "Ivory Coast" is more common in English language sources.  Even allowing that the google test is imprecise, four to one is pretty far from equality. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Usage on the internet is not general usage. Google hits reflect the plethora of UN and diplomatic documents online not usage of English speakers.  For terminology in English-language media that civilians read, see here. —   AjaxSmack     23:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * And many of the hits for "English" pages showing Côte d'Ivoire are actually to French text, as examioning them will show; there are better tests, including encyclopedias, at WP:NC (geographic names). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * In cases like this one I like to see what other, more "established", encyclopedias prefer to do. In both Britannica and Encarta Côte d’Ivoire is used. -- Vision Thing -- 11:48, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Usage in English media
So no one strains a mouse finger, the text below is copied from Talk:C%C3%B4te_d%27Ivoire/Archive1. —  AjaxSmack     23:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC) Journalistic style guides usually (but not always) recommend "Ivory Coast"." Wikipedia policy is to use the most common name used in English. This does not necessarily mean the English name. In this case the English name is the one overwhelmingly used worldwide, including by major news gathering organisations like the BBC. To use Côte d'Ivoire involves breaking Wikipedia's own naming policy. It is like putting Germany in as Deutchland, Italy in as Italia or Spain in as Espana. If it is not the version used by English speakers then English Wikipedia does not use it, just as if French speakers use Côte d'Ivoire primarily French Wikipedia would not put the article in as Ivory Coast. Côte d'Ivoire completely goes against our agreed name usage in hundreds of thousands of articles here.

It also runs contrary to usage by media organisations worldwide, including the BBC, ABC, CBS, Sky News SABC, Newsweek, Time, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Bloomberg, and other sources. The claim that the name used here is name used in English is demonstrably untrue.

For example:
 * The BBC page on the country uses Ivory Coast


 * The BBC website shows
 * 1,281 for IC,
 * 78 for Côte d'Ivoire/Cote d'Ivoire (many of which go straight to IC).
 * Reuters showed some references to IC, none for C'dI.
 * ABC News (US) shows
 * 75 references to Ivory Coast, most of them actual ABC references.
 * C'dI got 45 references, most in French, the others an African news agency or Wikipedia.
 * NBC News shows
 * 369 references to Ivory Coast
 * Côte d'Ivoire gets 4.
 * Cote d'Ivoire also gets 4.
 * Sky News had
 * 11 references to IC,
 * Cote d'Ivoire has 0.
 * South African television uses more IC that Cote 'd'Ivore. A search of the latter throws up articles that use either both or just Ivory Coast.
 * The British and Foreign Office lists the country profile name as Ivory Coast. In the article, as Wikipedia does, it gives the official name as used by that state.
 * 54 links on its site link to Ivory Coast.
 * 52 link to Cote d'Ivoire; most of whom use Ivory Coast either first, with the French translation second or in brackets or as the headline. 54 use IC, all as the primary name.
 * Time magazine shows
 * 259 links to Ivory Coast.
 * 2 links for Cote d'Ivoire, one of whom used Ivory Coast in the headline.
 * The New York Times shows
 * 6341 links to Ivory Coast.
 * 16 to Cote d'Ivoire and variants.
 * The Times of London shows
 * 349 for Ivory Coast.
 * 3 for variants of Cote d'Ivoire.
 * The US Department of State lists
 * 1000 references to Ivory Coast, many of them documents from the 2000s.
 * 1000 references to Cote d'Ivoire. (This suggests that their search engine automatically lists either country. However an examination of documents &mdash; one speech by an Under Secretary is quoted in the discussion below &mdash; shows regular usage only of Ivory Coast, with Cote d'Ivoire occurring as expected primarily in formal diplomatic documents, and Ivory Coast in general discussions about the country.

FearÉIREANN \(caint) 01:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

-


 * ...Google searches link official usage, semi-official usage, colloquial usage, letter of credence usage, linguistic links, correct links, incorrect links. Blanket google searches are rarely reliable on anything. (eg. they prove the Prince of Wales has a name he does not have.) As most websites are US based, google searches also reflect US rather than world usage. A targeted search on sites that deal with the issue of common usage name, which is what the MoS requires the name to be here) shows overwhelmingly that exclusively English language sites dealing exclusively with most common name use Ivory Coast by up to 80% on average; some 100%. No mainstream site dealing with most common name had a majority for Cote d'Ivoire. The county in the English speaking world that most uses the French name is the US. An examination of the leading US government, politics and media sites produces a ratio of US usage of 75:25 Ivory Coast/Cote d'Ivoire. That is the highest level of Cote d'Ivoire usage. The lowest produces a ratio of 100:00 and that occurs in many countries. The evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of Ivory Coast, more so that I expected. I expected a breakdown of 60-65:40-35, and with no group of national English speakers below 20.


 * It is irrelevant what we think should be more used. It is irrelevant what we think will in time be more used, what we would like to see used, what name we like and dislike, etc. Under Manual of Styles the issue is right now what is most used, and the evidence is overwhelmingly clear. If and when a majority use Cote d'Ivoire as the commonly recognised name for the state, then WP must use it here. Until that happens WP under its own mandatory rules must use the name currently most recognisable name as the article name, not the theoretical name, government name, registered name or whatever. The MoS lays down one mandatory requirement: the most commonly used name, meaning that name that an ordinary member of the public, if someone comes to WP to look up the country's details, will be using. All countries on WP are put on by most common name and nothing else (eg, Germany, not Federal Republic of Germany; Australia, not Commonwealth of Australia; Malaysia, not Kingdom of Malaysia, etc.) They same rule under MoS rules is meant to be followed here strictly. User talk:Jtdirl 02:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * You could have also put the responses to Jtdirl that totally refuted all of his arguments on that same archive page... But rather than reproduce the entire archive page here, the archive page pretty well speaks for itself without being cherry-picked and selectively quoted... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

What about Deutschland, Francois, Росси́я
What about Deutschland, Francois, Росси́я or Germany, France or Russia as they are known on wikipedia, even though they are not the name of the country lets show consistancy in this matter, either use the english name or the vernacluar terms fior the countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franz-kafka (talk • contribs)
 * You can't expect any consistency on this issue. The government of Myanmar changed their country's name many years ago, and the whole world save the USA and the major Commonwealth Realms recognize it, but Wikipedia keeps the country's page at Burma. The English Wikipedia should either use the official name in ALL cases (Timor-Leste, Côte d'Ivoire and Myanmar) or it should use the common English name in ALL cases (East Timor, Ivory Coast and Burma). There is absolutely no justification for using Côte d'Ivoire but not Timor-Leste or Myanmar. Jsc1973 04:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the French name of France is also France, only pronounced differently. And unlike Deutschland and Росси́я, Cote d'Ivoire is used in English language a lot. Please read the discussion above.--Carabinieri 20:54, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, the page should have been moved. The opposition was largely uninformed about policy. Sylvain1972 20:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well no need to argue about such trivialities. The article itself mentions that Britannica uses "Ivory Coast", so at least the real encyclopedias have it right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.72.110.11 (talk) 15:02, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Articles_for_deletion/Abissa
Abissa is a cultural concept embracing the music, dance, and spiritual life of the N’zima people in the town of Grand Bassam, Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa.

FYI. Ikip (talk) 00:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Here we go again
I know there have been many requested moves, but I want to move it please, simply because one doesn't say 'i am travelling to Cote d'ivorie' and especially since ENGLISH keyboards don't have these funny accents and letters. Londonderry city (the official name) is located at Derry, this is a case where the non-official name is used, so why shouldn't Cote d'ivory coast?--81.154.216.212 (talk) 10:43, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You're pissing into the ocean. And the wind. Good luck though! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.72.110.11 (talk) 15:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Clearly the op has never heard of advanced editing tools. ô!!!!! ņ!!!!!Ħ!!!!Æ!!! (And no i didn't copy/paste these) --Sooo Kawaii!!! ^__^ (talk) 18:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, We all know for a fact Cote d'lvoire is not what this place is known as in the English speaking world. This article should be at its best known English name. The country will not declare war if we move it to the correct English language location. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Population
In the article is written that Cote d'Ivoire is on the 141st place by population but in another article (List of countries by population) is written that the country is 55th. Which number is right? And if 55 is the right number, please correct it in the article. --Djuneyt tr (talk) 16:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It's Ivory Coast, not Cote d'Ivoire
The Ivorian government has no business regulating how their country should be called in other languages. Germany is called Germany in English, despite its official name being Deutschland, and the same holds true for dozens of other countries. --Fertuno (talk) 14:11, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Without doubt Ivory Coast is known as Ivory Coast in the English language and this is meant to be the English wikipedia. This article should be at its correct title Ivory Coast. The only reason its here is because theres some people on wikipedia who are on a quest to try and rid the world of what they see as an English language bias, even if its just commonsense. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:33, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The last vote on this was tied 19 / 19. Considering its been raised a couple of times since, i think there needs to be another RM to sort this mess out. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * In agreement, it should be moved back to 'Ivory Coast'. GoodDay (talk) 14:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Will we then get to have periodic votes every six months to move it back? Shimgray | talk | 19:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you support moving L'Abidjanaise to Song of Abidjan? And if not, why not? DS (talk) 19:18, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * and for that matter, La Marseillaise to the Song of Marseilles, Ishy Bilady to Long Live my Nation, etc etc etc? DS (talk) 19:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * In the english language world, this country's known as Ivory Coast. If a 'page move survey' occurs, I'll prefer "Ivory Coast". GoodDay (talk) 19:24, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe at the time of the first extensive discussion, the results as to what was the preferred form were ... somewhat mixed. Google hits are exactly equal, for example; some style guides say go one way, some say go the other. It's not nearly as simple as saying one is definitively "the standard English form" and one is not, tempting though that claim might be. Shimgray | talk | 19:30, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Name disputes tend to be somewhat common on Wikipedia. Republic of Ireland & Burma, come to mind. GoodDay (talk) 19:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Quick: "Gdansk" or "Danzig"? DS (talk) 20:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Gdansk? GoodDay (talk) 21:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not that simple. DS (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I wonder, is this the place where ivory soap was invented? GoodDay (talk) 21:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Danzig/Gdansk isn't the same thing. That is a city that has been either Polish or German at different, very discrete portions of its history. That dispute never would have blown out of proportion if not for a near-fanatical German nationalist who edited Wikipedia for a few years. There is no traditional English name for that city, so we just call it what the people who live there do. Cote d'Ivoire does have a traditional English name, though, and that is what we should call it on the English-language Wikipedia. Jsc1973 (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Case Studies (Bezuidenhout (talk) 17:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)) 1.) Gdansk - Danzig is different because there was a name change, where the German majority of the city (who call it Danzig) were forced and replaced by Poles (who call it Gdansk), it's natives call it Gdansk even though in English the name is controversial. 2.) Ireland - Burma - Burma is an excellent example of where the official name isn't always the most important factor. Ireland on the other hand is a different story. Ireland (incl. N.Ireland) has by far an English speaking majority, and this IS English wikipedia.. so double pow! 3.) Ivory Coast - Cote D'Ivore (who cares how you spell it!) : BBC uses Ivory Coast exclussivley, and so do many other news agencies. The native name of the country isn't even Cote D'Ivoire, that's only it's FRENCH name, while the inhabitants speak some indigenous language. 4.) Derry - Derry (a city in N.Ireland) has one name only: Londonderry. WHY IS THE UNOFFICIAL NAME USED??!! Because Derry is used alot. Is this the same for Ivory Coast? uuhhh, YES! Bezuidenhout (talk) 17:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Why isn't Japan listed as Nippon at wiki? this is an English language site please change title to Ivory Coast.119.155.35.51 (talk) 10:28, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe someone should go to the French wikipedia and rename it to the Polish translation, just to even things out a bit. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This situation is a nonsense. Feel free to go to fr.wikipedia and tell them to rename Angleterre to England and see how far you get. The cited precedents are irrelevant as they have been largely accepted by English speakers. Côte d'Ivoire clearly hasn't. Apologist revisionists are the bane of factual reporting. d a n n o 21:22, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

This is English language the name should be Ivory Coast not a French language name this ain't the French language,even if the official name is the French name does not matter a bit being Ivory Coast would still be the same name in English,i notice this very frequently that people from other native language origins try to hi jack English language wiki with their own.--Wikiscribe (talk) 05:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Many of you are saying 'but why don't we move La Marseille and 'L'Abijanaise' or whatever to english translation. Here's the reason, IN ENGLISH WE CALL IVORY COAST, IVORY COAST, BUT WE CALL THE ANTHEM L'ABIDJANAISE, ITS AS SIMPLE AS WHAT WE CALL IT. The Fifa world cup is going on and EVERY broadcaster calls it 'Ivory Coast' (except obviously the French one). Bezuidenhout (talk) 14:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Only country not at english name?
List of countries seems to indicate this is the only country not at a English name, doe anyone else thing this is strange ?Gnevin (talk) 17:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but this is clearly nonsense. Belarus is not an English name (the english would be White Russia), dito Afghanistan (english would be "land of the afghan"), Burkina Faso, Costa Rica,... Its *is* the only country at a French name, though - I guess that's worse than anything else for you?195.128.251.168 (talk) 22:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Of all the languages with Wikipedia articles about the Ivory Coast listed that use a Latin-based alphabet, only 11 use Côte d'Ivoire (Bamanankan, Bân-lâm-gú, Cebuano, Welsh, Eʋegbe, Kapampangan, Kernewek, Kiswahili, Bahasa Melayu, Novial, Tagalog), 12 if one includes French itself. All the others use their own version, eg Afrikaans: Ivoorkus, Alemannisch: Elfenbeinküste, Aragonés: Costa de Bori etc. Booshank (talk) 00:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you think we should rename Costa Rica and Los Angeles too? Aaker (talk) 11:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * No - there is no 'English' name for Costa Rica or Los Angeles so that would involve inventing a name. Ivory Coast is an existing and widespread name, so there is really no comparison, you are comparing apples and oranges. Booshank (talk) 00:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Booshank, please review the extended discussion above. You'll find that you're not the first to note this; but also that your arguments do not seem to be shared by the majority (and that there are several arguments for keeping it at Côte d'Ivoire). No need to retrace our steps. &mdash; mark &#9998; 07:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * My comment was aimed at whether we should rename Costa Rica or Los Angeles, which is clearly a ridiculous and irrelevant suggestion. My impression is that Ivory Coast is commoner than Cote d'Ivoire but I don't have any evidence for it, so I'm not arguing for a rename of the article. Booshank (talk) 00:46, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Afikaans Wikipedia = Ivoorkus / German Wikipedia = Elfenbeinküste / Hungarian Wikipedia = Elefántcsontpart / Romanian Wikipedia = Coasta de Fildeş / Italian Wikipedia = Costa d'Avorio /

Does the English Wikipedia have Ivory Coast??? NO we have to use freaking Côte d'Ivoire!

BULLSHIT!! Why is it that ONLY the English Wikipedia ALWAYS get the shaft with shit like this but the other languages don't have to knuckle under to this useless conformity?
 * I lived in Côte d'Ivoire in the 1980s when the name was changed. I also lived there from 1999-2004, and previously I lived in the neighboring country of Liberia for 18 years. Upper Volta also changed their name in the mid 1980s, from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso ("land of upright men"). If Ivory Coast had changed their name to an African language there would have been no debate here. But because they changed their name to its equivalent in a European language everyone gets bent out of shape -- maybe particularly since its French? The fact that the country changed its name is sufficient to list it under that name. So what if it changed it to a European translation of what everyone called it in English? They changed their name. Period. That should be reason enough to list it under the name they changed to. --Alan (talk) 04:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I would like to know whether Ivorians (Ivoirians?) say "United States of America" or "États-Unis d'Amérique". What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.86.92.198 (talk) 20:13, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Quite - when they call us 'United Kingdom' and not 'Royaume-uni', then and ONLY then will I accept I must call their country 'Côte d'Ivoire', til that happens they can do one! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.31.97.129 (talk) 10:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I find on the official government site (http://www.gouv.ci/) the following item, "S.E. Mme Wanda L. Nesbitt, ambassadeur des Etats-Unis en Côte d’Ivoire, a effectué une visite de travail...". Apparently the Ivorians feel that, although we may not use English to refer to their country, they are free to use French to refer to ours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.54.84.140 (talk) 15:45, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Look up what the US government calls its own country, and asks for it to be called, in French. The two situations are not the same. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:39, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Possibly the real reason is embarassment; 'Ivory Coast' or 'Côte d'Ivoire', it's got to have the most politically incorrect name of any moderately-sized region on the planet, managing in one stroke to reek of both greedy colonialism (cf. Gold Coast, Slave Coast) and cruelty to animals and the environment. If it still officially recognises itself as just a region where the French get their dead elephant tusks, it can only be because it can't think of a proper name for itself - the region itself is not a historically tribal one, but a hodge-podge of smaller cultural areas demarcated by the French colonists. Thus, they insist on the French name so that at least those who can't speak French (the majority of those who aren't already in the know) may not understand what it means. Besides this offensive conclusion, it would be interesting if someone could explain the real reason why this name is kept. It must be a little controversial there, mustn't it? Surely it has been discussed officially. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.115.193 (talk) 16:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

And because of people like they, Mohammed was officialy renamed to Muhammad (we are waiting for Yehoshua instead of Jesus) and Kraków was stole from it's English name, which is Cracow. Long live English language modernists! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.77.94.33 (talk) 12:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I came here from Wikipedia Spanish, we use "Costa de Marfil", but I find strange that still this date, English Wikipedia does not use the English name Ivory Coast, and prefer the French name. I hope you "fix" this "issue" soon. --190.166.140.111 (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Name - why?
Not wanting this to get caught up in the other dispute - why has the country asked that their official name be Cote d'Ivoire? As many have pointed out, we call Italia Italy, Espana Spain, Suomi Finland, etc. and you don't hear anything about these nations asking the world to name them in their own language. Especially curious is why they want it to be named in French - I understand the Burma/Myanmar dispute and how that reflects different peoples, but here it's not as though they want us to call them by a name that shows their roots/'true culture'/etc. So why is a country 'discouraging' the world from naming them in their own tongue when there seems to be little political motivation to do so? 72.81.34.48 (talk) 23:33, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a great question. If you look above you can see that there was a "Requested Move"-discussion about this topic about 3½ years ago. That discussion gives some good reasons for moving this article to Ivory Coast, and I think it was prematurely closed with a "No Consensus"-decision, as most of the reasons for moving the article were not adequately answered against. The main reason for keeping Cote d'Ivoire was that it is the official name of the country, which is not an accepted policy for naming articles on wikipedia (WP:Naming conventions (geographic_names)). In my mind it clearly goes against both WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ENGLISH to call this article Cote d'Ivoire. I therefore think there would be good reason for opening a new Requested Move discussion about this topic. TheFreeloader (talk) 02:00, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Why Europe?
Just wondering why the page says that Côte d'Ivoire is a country in Europe rather than Africa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.33.52.157 (talk) 19:32, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Never mind...I see it has been changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.33.52.157 (talk) 19:35, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Why Costa de Marfil?
Why is it called Costa de Marfil on the Spanish Wiki and not Côte d'Ivoire if that is the official name in all languages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.33.52.157 (talk) 19:48, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested move June 2010

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus, not moved billinghurst  sDrewth  13:15, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Côte d& → —There has again been shown interest in moving this article to Ivory Coast. This move was last requested three years ago. I think that, that request was inappropriately closed with a "No Consensus"-decision, as the initial arguments for the move were not properly answered against. WP:COMMONNAME and WP:English do in my opinion clearly speak for moving this article to Ivory Coast. TheFreeloader (talk) 03:00, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Original argument for the move:

Côte d'Ivoire → Ivory Coast. It's time again.


 * 1)  Côte d'Ivoire is not English and is in violation of Naming conventions (use English) (and Côte d'Ivoire is not quite French, the official language of Ivory Coast [that would be Côte-d'Ivoire])
 * 2)  Côte d'Ivoire violates Naming conventions (geographic names) which states that, "The title: When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. This often will be a local name, or one of them; but not always."
 * 3)  Côte d'Ivoire is less commonly used than Ivory Coast and violates Naming conventions
 * 4)  Côte d'Ivoire violates guidelines such as Guide to writing better articles ("Non-English words should be used as titles for entries only as a last resort") and Guide to writing better articles (// is supposed to be English?)

In addition, there are many other excellent reasons and statistical evidence presented above and in Talk:Côte d'Ivoire/Archive1

The primary argument for Côte d'Ivoire seems to be that the Ivorian authorities have dictated the usage of this form and that the UN concurs. Howver, Wikipedia is not beholden to following the dictates of any specific regime nor is it a manual of diplomatic protocol. It freely uses common English terms such as South Korea, East Timor, Brunei, and Vietnam that are in violation of UN and/or official usage. And other language Wikipedias do the same with Ivory Coast (see above). —  AjaxSmack     08:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose Neutral as far as google search goes, the French name is the most commonly used in English: "Côte d'Ivoire" -wikipedia has more results than "ivory coast" -wikipedia, both restricted to English. In any case, the title of this article in French is Côte d'Ivoire. Côte-d'Ivoire is indeed listed as an alternative but without the dash is fine too. Munci (talk) 04:17, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Munci, I suggest you maybe read some of those articles. Some of them say Ivory Coast (Côte d'ivoire), meanwhile others (such as the Cia fact book) say Co''te d'Ivoire (suchout the arrow thingey on the O)
 * You're right, ???, "Cote d ivoire" -Ivory-Coast -wikipedia gets fewer hits than "Ivory Coast" -"Cote d'ivoire" -wikipedia. Munci (talk) 17:12, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Côte d'Ivoire is the official English short form name in the ISO and is actually now more commonly used in English language sources than the former name. Even the U.S. State Department uses the new name as the primary name. --Polaron | Talk 05:17, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Support as far as media goes, Ivory coast is more common. Even in the football world cup at the moment calls them exclusivly Ivory Coast. Bezuidenhout (talk) 07:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Also the majority of English speakers don't have the funny arrow thing (ô) so thats why names such as in Vietnam for English have developed. Bezuidenhout (talk) 07:28, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Not an issue. See WP:REDIRECT. Knepflerle (talk) 23:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment the English-language World Cup coverage is using the French version. 76.66.195.196 (talk) 12:07, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry I don't get what you're saying? Bezuidenhout (talk) 12:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose -- I don't know where those writers who assert that "Ivory Coast" is the name the media usually uses are located. I suggest this may reflect parochial regionalism and isolationism, from whereever they are from.  Media here in Canada always uses Cote d'Ivoire.  Geo Swan (talk) 13:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment' French is an official language in Canada.
 * Comment - The BBC seems mainly to use Ivory Coast, e.g., , and .  There is counter example here, but most search results for "Cote d'Ivoire" appear to have that term in comments in the article rather than the article itself.  Because of this I'm minded to support the move but will wait for other comments because if usage does indeed vary in different countries the spirit of WP:ENGVAR would suggest we leave it where it is. Dpmuk (talk) 14:45, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - Geo Swan, scroll up on the page, there is information about usage in English media. Bezuidenhout (talk) 14:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * support Per WP:English and the fact that both names are actually descriptive (both mean Ivory Coast), but one is in French and another - in English. Don't see why a foreign language name should be used on the English language wikipedia since there is a more prevalent English name. If we forget about WP:OCE for a sec, does this mean we should move Germany to Deutschland? Cause if the article stays with the French name, I don't see why this precedent shouldn't be used at other articles as well. -- L a v e o l  T 21:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Sigh, yet another clear misunderstanding of WP:UE (one of the most misunderstood policies we have). Terms commonly used in English can be made up of words from other languages, we do not translate if it is not customary - what we need to establish is if it is more common too.  The Germany case is also not analogous, as CdI has a fair amount of westablished use in English, whereas Deutschland does not. Knepflerle (talk) 23:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Unlike most countries, where the "English form" is clearly more common than the "local form" in English usage, the balance between IC & CdI is pretty evenly split in the literature. Given that, we come down to evaluating the two cases; given the context, I see no reason to deliberately use a colonial-era name in preference to the one used by the country itself. Shimgray | talk | 22:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, if I've mistaken, but isn't actually the current name that is colonial. Wasn't the country a former French colony? -- L a v e o l  T 00:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The country was indeed run by France. However, "Ivory Coast" is still a name that dates to the colonial period; English had a wide range of names for the West African countries of this form - Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, Slave Coast, etc. I don't think this is a deciding factor, but it still seems something we should consider - they're both forms of the colonial name, but one is the one the country wishes to use, and the other one isn't. It feels a little pointed to me to deliberately pick the former when most other things are, as discussed, equal. Shimgray | talk | 14:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * 'Comment Maybe our very witty friend kneflerle who thinks he is correcting everyone....(well at least everyone he disagrees with.... meaning the people who support the English naming)  missed this big misunderstanding in an argument to keep the French name.. the "political correctness argument" maybe he missed, but many Europeans aka white people engaged in colonialism not only the British but the Spaniards, Portuguese (who were first on the colonial scene), Dutch and yes the French and they all engaged in all the acts that have been associated with it,now because the government of the Ivory Coast likes one "European" version over other is not the issue because Official name is not the issue the official name of the country is Côte d'Ivoire and if that was the issue it would not be an issue ,but we are not beholden to the Ivory Coast feelings or what they prefer though international organizations or diplomatic sites are usually beholden that is why International organizations and diplomatic sites may not be the best sources when trying to flesh out what is the best/widely used name for the English language article but more independent English Language media sources are a little better mainly from places like the USA Australia Great Britain look even Jamaican news papers use Ivory Coast(though it is a story from the Associated Press) in a common everyday common fashion and they are English speaking folks as well  and their are tons and tons more sources for Ivory Coast and "many" sources being used for the French version are international organizations and diplomatic sites also i don't know if anybody realized this but the lead sentence says "commonly known in English as Ivory Coast,[5]" HELLO, correct me if i am wrong but the argument here stems from the claim that the French name is the common excepted English name? Not to mention the source for that little statement  sites the government discouraging the use of the English name!Again HELLO --Wikiscribe (talk) 05:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * A couple more corrections, as my comments are misrepresented above: I haven't opposed the move - I have just asked for more evidence, because I don't feel there's enough evidence to make an informed decision based on usage. I have only corrected the common but mistaken interpretation of WP:USEENGLISH; this policy would actually endorse the use of CdI if it were more used in English than IC.  And the question of which is used more frequently is what we're trying to establish, and why we need evidence of usage. Knepflerle (talk) 09:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Seems like this has been filibustered by people for a very long time,people bring this issue up and people make it seem like they are clearing things up but yet they bring nothing but more questions and ambiguity in order to keep the status quo, the article  is even a contradiction in its self with this statement" commonly known in English as Ivory Coast,[5]  " which flies in the face of WP:COMMONNAME again it should be titled Ivory Coast, you act as if their will be a hundred sources that will come and say "Ivory Coast is used more in everyday life than the French name" it is obvious the French name is and has been used because it is the official name the government wants but is not the common name and if their is any doubt it is obvious we opt for the name in English and not in French on English language Encyclopedia--Wikiscribe (talk) 16:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support On the grounds it is a French name and not the name in English and it this country is commonly refereed to as the Ivory Coast, the English translation of the French name,whats next we change the name of Spain to the Spanish language name of España,that is the Spanish name for the country but in English language we call it Spain and thus that is the reason the name of the article is Spain and not Espana,same should apply here--Wikiscribe (talk) 23:20, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a very misleading analogy. We don't call Spain "España" because there is a generally accepted name for the country in English - Spain. In the case of IC/CdI, there isn't obvious "generally accepted name" - some sources use one, some the other, and we can't clearly say either is dominant. So, we can't simply say "use the standard name in English" - there isn't one. (Lest this seem slightly counterintutive, remember there are countries whose "common name" in English has changed over time - an excellent example would be Iran, which until the mid-c20th was widely known as Persia.) Shimgray | talk | 14:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Well it does not mean the English speaking world is necessarily using the Côte d'Ivoire rather than Ivory Coast, i mean their are millions more hits on Google under the English translation of Ivory Coast than Côte d'Ivoire ,this is purely a case of trying to make the article say what the government of Ivory Coast wants it to say ,well i think that is just too bad, because the government of North Korea wants the name of their country to be referred to as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", but it does not, does it now, i can't even pronounce that French name my damn self,.Also what do we have here on the Spanish language Wikipedia the name of this country..... not surprisingly has the name in Spanish "Costa de Marfil" and not Côte d'Ivoire there is nothing convincing that the French name is common within the English language lexicon at all,it should not have had the French name in the first place if people want to see it in Fremh they can go over to the French Wikipedia and see it there--Wikiscribe (talk) 04:45, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Côte d'Ivoire gets 20,500,000 google hits and Ivory coast gets 26,500,000, so Ivory coast is the WP:COMMONNAME. Not only that but Côte d'Ivoire violates WP:ENGLISH. The English name is more widely recognized in the English speaking world, it is more recognizable, and it is more descriptive. --WikiDonn (talk) 05:06, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Another misunderstanding of WP:UE: the name more commonly used in English is what we would use, be it IC or CdI - that is what WP:UE says, not what you state here. Knepflerle (talk) 23:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Ivory coast is the name more commonly used in English, and it's in English, so it is supported by both WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ENGLISH. --WikiDonn (talk) 18:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * You're not reading what Knepflerle is writing, or what WP:UE says. I'm more willing than him/her to consider usage to prefer IC over CdI, but he/she is correct that the fact that the words Ivory and Coast are English words, while the words Côte and Ivoire are not English words, is irrelevant.  What matters is what the place is called when writing or speaking in English, not the linguistic origin of the words themselves.  The Italian city of Livorno, for example, is usually called Livorno in contemporary English texts, even though Livorno is an Italian word and Leghorn is an English word.  --Atemperman (talk) 05:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Ivory Coast remains the common name in English, it is no more "colonial era" than the French name. FIFA sometimes uses official rather than common names, we do not have to follow them. PatGallacher (talk) 10:25, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment In the absence of a predominant name in English (all these Google hits just show that both names are commonly used in English), we should defer to how the country refers to itself in English. Most international organizations appear to use the newer English name, including FIFA, IOC, UN, ISO. Even the U.S. government uses the new name more than the old name. The British government appears to use "Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire)", again showing that neither name is overwhelmingly predominant. --Polaron | Talk 15:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment The Guardian, a British paper normally noted for its sensitivity and opposition to chauvism in cultural matters, advises using "Ivory Coast" in its style guide, and this name appears in its coverage of the World Cup (along with "North Korea", "South Korea" and "Holland"). PatGallacher (talk) 15:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * BBC sports commentators at the World Cup are using "Ivory Coast". PatGallacher (talk) 20:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment In the United States, The New York Times using Ivory Coast in a current World Cup article and their Bio on the Ivory Coast[][] and CNN []MSNBC [] Australia as well is using Ivory Coast as Common place that being their ABC News [] and here [], i also found Canada's News Agency recently using the English Name Ivory Coast and in Canada French is also an official language[]--Wikiscribe (talk) 22:10, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment When their is a clear widely used name in English we use the English language name not the name in another language,it is clear and evident that Ivory Coast is widely known and used in the English speaking world and if neither name is predominate than it is obvious because this is English language Wikipedia we opt for the name in English not French that appears to be the guideline  WP:ENGLISH  - WP:Place--Wikiscribe (talk) 16:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The name more commonly used in English is what we would use, be it IC or CdI - that is what WP:UE says, not what you state here. Knepflerle (talk) 23:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support There is zero reason why Wikipedia needs to follow either the official stance of any govt (which can and do change), or the resultant (partial) following of their wishes in (some) media. The adoption of CdI is not widespread enough in the mainstream media to justify the resulting potential for confusion by Wikipedia not using a widely recognised English name form for the exact same entity. Ivory Coast does not have any other conflicting meanings, so it is no worse than using CdI from an accuracy standpoint. Although anybody proposing this move as a precursor to changing football pages, people should be aware that on those pages, the current standard is to use what FIFA uses, and so some football people are not likely to be swayed by this move succeeding. MickMacNee (talk) 19:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Plenty of rhetoric so far, but can somebody please actually do the job that matters, per WP:UE and WP:NC - what do English language texts use most often? Other general reference works?  English language media outlets?  Academic journals?  Diplomatic use?  Other non-specialist English text?  A Google test is not a substitute.  If anybody wants inspiration or suggestion, take a look at Talk:Kiev/naming.  Once the facts have been established, then we can make an informed decision - until then, it's all hot air. Knepflerle (talk) 23:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think your concerns are legitimate, as WP:NCGN does state that: "If a native name is more often used in English sources than a corresponding traditional English name, then use the native name. An example is Livorno, which is now known more widely under its native name than under the traditional English name "Leghorn"."
 * I have therefore tried to address your concerns about this by going through the criteria given by WP:Naming conventions (geographic names) for determining the most widely accepted name for a place.
 * 1. Encyclopedia Britannica has the country placed under "Cote d'Ivoire". Columbia Encyclopedia has it placed under "Ivory Coast". I could not look it up in Encarta.
 * 2. At Google Scholar "Cote d'Ivoire" gets 55,400 hits and "Ivory Coast" gets 89,500 hits. At Google Books "Cote d'Ivoire" gets 132,000 hits and "Ivory Coast" gets 489,000 hits.
 * 3. Cambridge Histories gives 16 hits for "Cote d'Ivoire" and 65 hits for "Ivory Coast". The Library of Congress has the country listed under "Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire)" in its country study, the search device on that site is not that useful for this purpose as it only list the first 500 hits. I do not have access to a full version of Oxford English Dictionary, but Dictionary.com has the country listed under "Ivory Coast", while "Cote d'Ivoire" is mentioned as the French name for the country.
 * 4. I do not have access to Lexis-Nexis, but in Google News' archive "Cote d'Ivoire" gets 25,500 results while "Ivory Coast" gets 86,400 results.
 * 5. I know this discussion isn't over yet, but there has in my opinion in this discussion been a lean towards the opinion that Ivory Coast is the more common name.
 * 6. When doing a Google search for each of the names while excluding hits mentioning the other one, I get 2,500,000 less hits for "Ivory Coast" and 7,900,000 less hits for "Cote d'Ivoire". This does suggest to me that "Ivory Coast" is more often used to explain/translate the name "Cote d'Ivoire" than the other way around.
 * My conclusion to this is that the name "Ivory Coast" is more commonly used for this country in English than "Cote d'Ivoire".TheFreeloader (talk) 20:26, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Freeloader i was able to look up Encarta and it has it down as the Ivory Coast and goes on to read  "Ivory Coast English name for Cote d'Ivoire" which actually adds more fuel to the point that the French name is not really recognized in the English language--Wikiscribe (talk) 21:41, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, but they are thinking of the encyclopedia version of Encarta in the guidelines. Also, I think in the dictionary version you linked to, they actually speak for that "Cote d'Ivoire" is most common name, as they've chosen put the main definition at "Cote d'Ivoire" and put a redirect at "Ivory Coast".TheFreeloader (talk) 22:08, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Still this sheds doubt on the notion that Cote d'Ivoire is the English name for the Ivory Coast, which some have argued, remember article names should be in English whenever possible I.E The Official Name is a French name and their is a widely accepted English name that being Ivory Coast ,the dictionary is a reference the Encyclopedia is using the official name, look at the bottom of the short article and it says former name Ivory Coast--Wikiscribe (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Support. Naming_conventions_(use_English) emphasizes the importance of reliable sources, cautions against raw Google hits, and makes no mention of how an entity refers to itself. Reliable sources, as adduced above, favor Ivory Coast. Even the second-tier criterion favors Ivory Coast.

Specifically with regard to geographic names, Naming_conventions_(geographic_names) prefers using a widely accepted English name over an official name. All of the established naming criteria in WP favor Ivory Coast over Côte_d'Ivoire -- if you disagree with these criteria, then take it up at their respective pages.--Atemperman (talk) 01:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * " Reliable sources, as adduced above, favor Ivory Coast" - where's the evidence of this? I agree with your reasoning otherwise, but I don't think we yet have enough evidence of usage to draw that conclusion. Knepflerle (talk) 09:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support as previous nominator for reasons given in the orange box above. I might add that, since my previous nomination, I have had the opportunity to interact with around a dozen Ivorians outside of the Ivory Coast.  In all cases but one, they introduced themselves in English as being from "Ivory Coast".  One person introduced herself as being from "Coat DeVwar" but, after a few blank stares from other English speakers, amended it to "Ivory Coast".  I realize this is anecdotal original research but I might be worth considering that even most natives of Ivory Coast seem to favor the English name in common usage situations.  —   AjaxSmack   03:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Strong support - It is very obvious that Ivory Coast is the English name for this country and this is the English wikipedia. North Korea is in its correct English known common name rather than its official one, there is no reason this one should not be.


 * Do we have to go through this every month or two? Lets just move it and be done with it. If it leads to riots on the streets in the Ivory Coast i will vote for it to be changed back. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:43, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose Both Ivory Coast and Côte d'Ivoire are used in English prose.  It seems particularly inappropriate to see this proposal resurface at the time that the Côte d'Ivoire version is seeing extensive use as a result of the football World Cup.  Examples of use in English prose are:-
 * Close ties to France since independence in 1960, the development of cocoa production for export, and foreign investment made Cote d'Ivoire one of the most prosperous of the West African states, but did not protect it from political turmoil from Central Intelligence Agency
 * Cote d'Ivoire star striker Didier Drogba was voted the Man of the Match after his team's 3-0 win over DPR Korea in 2010 FIFA World Cup Group G here on Friday from Xinhua News Agency
 * ''Sven-Goran Eriksson, Côte d’Ivoire’s coach was quoted saying: “They’ve acquired discipline and organisation. These are good players, they listen and they want to learn and work. Côte d’Ivoire have a great team and a very bright future.” from The Hot News Herald
 * About one dozen people, including women and children, have been confirmed dead in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, after heavy rain storms this week caused mudslides in some of the most run-down areas of the country's main port from UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
 * Cote d'Ivoire will need a miracle and some help from Brazil if they want to reach the next round from Irish Times
 * Portugal joined Brazil in the last 16 of the World Cup on Friday after the pair drew 0-0 in their final Group G game, while Côte d'Ivoire were eliminated despite a 3-0 win over North Korea from Mail and Guardian
 * After their 3-0 win over Korea DPR, Côte d'Ivoire's players were looking back – both at their first two matches in Group G and at their FIFA World Cup™ debut four years ago from FIFA
 * Portugal stormed to life in a 7-0 rout of Korea DPR last time out, putting themselves well ahead of Côte d'Ivoire on potential goal difference from Soccerway
 * For the second straight World Cup, Côte d'Ivoire bumped into another hot group and are on their way out again at the first round stage from Super Sport
 * Brazilian Kaka is suspended for the game after being sent off in his team’s 3-1 triumph over Côte d’Ivoire from Betfred
 * Cote d'Ivoire coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said on Thursday that his former team, England, can beat Germany in the round of 16 at the World Cup from People's Daily
 * Of the more than 5 million non-Ivoirian Africans living in Cote d'Ivoire, one-third to one-half are from Burkina Faso; the rest are from Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Benin, Senegal, Liberia, and Mauritania from US Department of State
 * The mission analyzed the economic situation and outlook of Côte d’Ivoire in the context of Article IV Consultation and conducted the first review of the implementation of the economic program supported by the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) ., the IMF’s concessional window for low-income countries from International Monetary Fund
 * Côte d’Ivoire was once the economic miracle of Africa and a role model for stability on the continent from Lonely Planet
 * Côte d’Ivoire peacefully achieved autonomy in 1958 and independence in 1960, when Félix Houphouët-Boigny was elected president from Encyclopaedia Britannica
 * Côte d'Ivoire has been a WTO member since 1 January 1995 from World Trade Organization
 * Côte d’Ivoire’s civil war began in 2002 and has since fluctuated between periods of intense violence followed by relative calm from International Rescue Committee
 * The Côte d'Ivoire lies too far west to have been significant in the 17th and 18th century development of the Guinea coast gold, and slave trade from Geographia
 * In March, teams handed over the mobile clinics and the mobile nutrition programme they had managed in the western region of Côte d'Ivoire to the local authorities from Medecins Sans Frontières
 * Côte d'Ivoire's economy is based on the export of cash crops. It is the largest producer of cocoa in the world, producing 40% of global supply, and the fifth largest producer of robusta coffee from Foreign and Commonwealth Office
 * In the south of Côte d'Ivoire is a 320-mile (515-km) wide strip of coastal land on the Gulf of Guinea from Cultures of the World : Côte d'Ivoire by Patricia Sheehan
 * Houphouët—who for more than three decades was "the 'active center' of an institutionalized state structure" in Côte d'Ivoire—sought during his long reign to recognize dissent but also to contain it within state structures, notably through cosultative mass meetings he called "Dialogue" from The Emergent Independent Press in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire by W Joseph Campbell
 * Skinsmoke (talk) 03:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Well some of these sources have already been established further up though, again, i caution with Diplomatic/Governmental and International organizations who may be using the "official" name like the U.S State Department for instance which clearly uses the term Official Name and not necessarily the established English language WP:COMMONNAME now i am not saying those sources are no good but some people think that if Governmental sites are using the French term that they are the Silver Bullets and that is not the case also i think some of your sources are actually using Ivory Coast like this one  and i also notice that some sites that do use the term Cote d'Ivoire also tend to use the term Ivory Coast as well as with this source  which seems like many English language peoples are not to familiar with the French name (WP:English) and source like this one claim that Ivory Coast is the English name .With news stories there are currently About 15,600 results (0.39 seconds)for the Ivory Coast and only about About 7,600 results (0.42 seconds) for  cote d'ivoire ,Ivory Coast has more than double the amount of News articles using the English name.Also their is the Columbia Encyclopedia using Ivory Coast--Wikiscribe (talk) 06:12, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Nobody claimed that Cote d'Ivoire never is used in English prose. The argument is that Ivory Coast is more commonly used than Cote d'Ivoire, and those cherry-picked examples you cited did nothing to disprove that.TheFreeloader (talk) 12:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose If there was a clear enough preference for "Ivory Coast" in English language sources then we probably wouldn't be having this discussion over and over again in the first place. The reality is that sources are split. Some say "Côte d'Ivoire", some say "Ivory Coast". And while it's true that there are typically more "Ivory Coast" results when we compare raw numbers, I think there are enough results from a variety of reliable sources to show that "Côte d'Ivoire" is at least a commonly used English name. And when sources are split, WP:ENGLISH recommends staying at the last stable version. That would be Côte d'Ivoire. Orange Tuesday (talk) 14:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't concede split usage but, even if it is, WP:COMMONNAME still calls for using the English name in this case. —   AjaxSmack   03:28, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Sources are split, but there is an English name that is in current use by a large number of ordinary English speakers and that is used by major media sources including BBC, the Times of London, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Johannesburg Mail & Guardian, the Lagos Guardian, the Times of India and the Toronto Globe and Mail. (note - some of these show split usages between both Ivory Coast and Côte d'Ivoire) While Côte d'Ivoire is used by Encyclopedia Britannica online, the CIA World Factbook, seems to be preferred by CBC and Al Jazeera English and is probably steadily gaining in popularity among English-speaking people, there remains an English name for the country in widespread common use, just as the country has its name in other languages.  Where there is genuinely divided usage in my opinion the English language name for a country should have been used from the start on English language Wikipedia.  There was never a real consensus on this issue, from what I can see, and the issue has been raised repeatedly as an instance of an unaccountable departure from Wikipedia naming policies. At some future time usage in English may shift definitively in favour of the official name of Côte d'Ivoire and then it will be appropriate as the article's name. Corlyon (talk) 20:24, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

7 days is up, The verdict is clear! BritishWatcher (talk) 20:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. Having seen how this discussion has developed I now feel able to comment and I think the move is the right thing to do.  Usage seems split so I think we follow the general wikipedia principal of going with what is likely to cause least surprise.  From the above discussion and my limited knowledge I get the impression that, until reasonably recently, it was nearly always known as Ivory Coast in English.  Therefore anyone searching for Cote d'Ivoire is unlikely to be surprised to end up at Ivory Coast as they will probably be aware of that name for the country.  However people searching for Ivory Coast may be surprise to end up at Cote d'Ivorie as they may not know the country by this name, especially as it would seem that, in some countries (the UK for example) it still gets very little usage.  I also think, as an English language encyclopaedia, it makes sense to use the English name when there isn't a clear preference for another name. Dpmuk (talk) 22:26, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify search results once again, I performed a google books and google scholar search on the names used. Here are the results (in English language books/publications only):
 * 650 000 hits for Ivory Coast.
 * 109 000 for Côte d'Ivoire plus another 110 000 for Cote d'Ivoire, although one cannot be really sure if most of those are not duplicates.
 * So Ivory Coast turns out to be the most common name used in English language books (since we're looking for English language publications and not French or any other). The result is at least 3 to 1 in Ivory Coast's favour and that is even if we sum up the hits by both versions of the French name.


 * The search in Scholar showed the following:
 * 141 000 hits for Ivory Coast
 * 56 700 for the ô version and 55,300 for the o one - here duplications were quite obvious since even the first article in the list - this one turned up in both searches. I didn't bother to check all of them, but what I suppose is that a search with the normal o shows all results with the diacritics version as well.


 * These results are the final blow for me. They really show that there actually is a predominantly used name in English. I'm not sure who turned up with the idea that both names were equally used, but this is not the case. Mind you, we already had a similar case here on wikipedia on the Republic of Macedonia. And I think there is a clear correlation between the precedent (using the most common name, not the one adopted by most international organisations). -- L a v e o l  T 11:09, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think the Google hits are as clear cut as you make them out to be. For one thing, Google Scholar and Books both search sources that were printed decades ago. If we restrict our Google Scholar results by year we get an entirely different picture:
 * 2010: 1290 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 2670 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2009: 3740 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 6800 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2008: 3450 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 6800 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2007: 3150 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 6720 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2006: 2900 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 6010 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2005: 2800 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 5760 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2004: 2640 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 5100 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2003: 2580 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 4950 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2002: 2190 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 3900 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2001: 1990 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 3560 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * 2000: 1920 for "Ivory Coast" vs. 3260 for "Côte d'Ivoire"
 * Now I'm not saying that this proves that Côte d'Ivoire is the more common English name. But I think it reinforces my previous point: Sources are split, and we're not going to be able to establish one name as clearly dominant over the other just by comparing search engine numbers. Policy is clear on this: when sources are split you stay at the most recent stable version. This page has been stable at "Côte d'Ivoire" for years now, and since that name is sourced as being commonly used in English publications, I see no reason for a move at this time. Orange Tuesday (talk) 17:21, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Your results are skewed because they include French (and other) language hits which would naturally weigh away from the English name. I don't concede split usage but, even if it's so, WP:COMMONNAME should kick in for the English name.  —   AjaxSmack   03:28, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And Laveol's reults are skewed because he didn't put "Ivory Coast" in quotation marks and because he's examining decades worth of usage, including sources from long before Côte d'Ivoire started being used in English. If we repeat his book search using quotation marks, restricting results to English, and looking only at the last five years, we get: 34500 for Côte d'Ivoire vs. 36300 for Ivory Coast. Again, a split. And this is why we're not supposed to just compare search engine numbers. They're imperfect samples, and when you change the parameters slightly you can get huge swings like this.
 * Also, just because "Côte d'Ivoire" is composed of French words doesn't mean it's not English. "Burkina Faso" is composed of Mòoré and Dioula words, "Cinque Terre" is composed of Italian words, and "Rio Grande" is composed of Spanish words. But all of these are all still in English because we don't use the literal translation of every place name. "Côte d'Ivoire" shows up untranslated in a significant number of English sources. For my money that makes it at the very least an English term. And if sources are split over which of the two English terms are more common, then the page should stay at the last stable version. Orange Tuesday (talk) 14:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * This stable version mantra is a filibuster attempt their is to much sources that contradict the name of the article, Ivory Coast Google search in totality clearly favor Ivory Coast which is an indicator of what is the proper Common name should be not to mention that their are also many sources that use the French variant and the English variant side by side this shows me that many native English speakers are not familiar with the French variant not to mention that their are sources that call in to question if Cote Ivoire is even an English name period WP:English as this sources plainly states Ivory Coast is the "English name" (not translation) for Cote Ivoire [] and Merriam Webster dictionary does a similar type thing and put Ivory Coast front and center and calls Cote Ivoire a "VARIANT" []--Wikiscribe (talk) 21:26, 4 July 2010 (UTC)--Wikiscribe (talk) 21:26, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The Google test is completely inconclusive. When I do a search (English language only, minus the other term, and minus wikipedia) I get even results with 27 million each . Orange Tuesday (talk) 22:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * ...and if I account for both spellings of Côte d'Ivoire (with and without the accent) suddenly it changes to 24,600,000 vs. 17,800,000 in favour of Côte d'Ivoire. . This is not strong enough evidence to base a move on. Orange Tuesday (talk) 22:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I would agree Google has flipped totally for some reason i would surmise the other results would change back on Google because i have been checking and it has mainly stayed with Ivory Coast but any way even if it did stay there are other popular engines like Yahoo which has an extreme discrepency[]158,000,000 for Ivory Coast and only 70,900,000 on the French name[]Bing also has more for Ivory Coast and Ask has it about even as i said though it is concerning when i come across many sites who are using the names side by side on their websites (just an example[]) which leads me to believe that English language people are not familiar with that French name and is not looked upon as a English language name and Ivory Coast is a commonly used name which has been demonstrated,in this case i say opt for the name in English if there is any doubt,which their is doubt not to mention which i see has been mentioned from way back no other Wikipedia language version is using this Cote de Ivoire this seems more an attempt to use the official name i stand by the statement that it should not have been saying the French name in the first place  --Wikiscribe (talk) 01:50, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And why all of a sudden should we be looking at Yahoo instead of Google? Because it supports your conclusion? If anything, the fact that you can get wildly different results from different search engines just backs up what I've been saying all along: sources are split and the search engine test doesn't conclusively point to one name over another. Orange Tuesday (talk) 02:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I did that because since this whole thing started i have checked and Google had consistently(Which it may flip back) had Ivory Coast with mores hits and when it suddenly flipped i wanted to check other well known and used search engines to see if Cote dIvoire would get more as well but that was not the case according to them and Yahoo has the biggest discrepancy i have seen yet in whatever direction,though as i have said if you go through many of those Cote d'Ivorie hits and they will see this in the description "US Library of Congress - Country Study: Côte d'Ivoire Ivory Coast : Country Studies - Federal Research Division, Library of Congress." notice how the description also uses Ivory Coast and now visit the site same here "Ivory Coast ( Cote-d'Ivoire  ), Travel Guide A complete and comprehensive guide to Ivory Coast ( Cote-d'Ivoire ), detailing accommodation, safaris, visitor travel information and more."'http://www.africaguide.com/country/ivoryc/' etc etc etc it appears that Cote d'Ivore is being skewed in the hits,  to boot if Cote d'Ivoire is the recognized English name why are so many sites using both words again under Cote d Ivoire searches,because it is demonstrating  that Cote Ivoire is not the English name even, to boot there are sources that directly state that, i posted further up, this is a case of Cote d' Ivoire the Official name and Ivory Coast the English name and it is Commonly used--Wikiscribe (talk) 04:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't say Côte d'Ivoire was THE English name, I said it was AN English name. And if the Google results can really "flip" so dramatically in the space of a few days then I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that either of these names can be considered "THE English name". Orange Tuesday (talk) 05:04, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose Sources are split, and certainly more recent sources tend towards Côte d'Ivoire—except for some media outlets with respect to the World Cup team. But that shouldn't be the motivation for a move at this point (and I trust nobody will attempt to move Netherlands to Holland for similar reasons).  I recall the Myanmar to Burma move a couple of years ago, which should have also ended with a no-consensus/no-move result but wasn't.  We shouldn't make the same mistake here. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:43, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Requesting someone close this RM. It has been over 10 days now and the current vote count is something like 11 in favour of a move and 6 opposed. The majority is clearly in support of a change. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:58, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Administrative reply. There is a large backlog at WP:RM, so this may take a while to get closed.  Also, this is not a vote, and the decision to move or not move is based on the strength of the arguments.  So with a significant discussion, it may take someone a while to sort out the strength of the various reasons offered.  Also remember that decisions are based on consensus and not a simple majority. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose The official English name the Nation wants to be called in Cote D'Ivoire, and this is respected by almost all national and international organizations. A nation should be able to choose it's own name, and an encyclopedia as an objective source of information should respect the name that a nation chooses, the name that national and international institutions have chosen to accept. Yes, Japan calls itself Nippon, but if you visit the website for the Japanese embassy, you will clearly see that they accept the common English name to be Japan. They have not insisted that we call them Nippon in English. If a nation or person does not want to be called something, the English speaking public cannot impose that name on them, no matter what people think. If everyone wanted to call Barack Obama John Hoodlem, but he insisted on being called Barack Obama, the most objective thing this wikipedia can do is to use the name Barack Obama. Yes North Korea is officially called the DPRK, but the Dem. People's Rep. of Korea is the official name of the country, and wikipedia uses the common name. North Korea has never insisted upon not be called North Korea. The argument that "Cote D'Ivoire" is French, and therefore cannot be used as English title on an English wikipedia is flawed because the like what the people above said, La Marseillaise is French too, and yet we still called the song La Marseillaise on wikipedia as opposed to an English translation. Many years ago, the nation of Zaire changed it's name to Congo or The Democratic Republic of Congo. All encyclopedias respected the right of a nation to change its own name, even in a language other than that nation's own. JohnWycliff (talk) 12:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

No argument provided that there is further clarity, or solutions arising from the move. There is the requirement for. billinghurst  sDrewth  13:15, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Closed. No specific consensus, and redirects exist.  Clear evidence that both are acceptable (WP:COMMONNAME & WP:ENGVAR) and used interchangeably in English (WP:English).
 * https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iv.html.
 * http://www.ghana.embassy.gov.au/acra/home.html
 * http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Ivory_Coast
 * http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/country-profile/sub-saharan-africa/ivory-coast/
 * http://www.safetravel.govt.nz/destinations/ivorycoast.shtml
 * 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. No further edits should be made to this section.