Talk:Empress Shōshi

Requested move 11 February 2017

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

The result of the move request was: Not moved &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 09:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Empress Shōshi → Fujiwara no Shōshi – The main title, "Empress Shoshi", is technically incorrect and cannot be considered accurate from a historical point of view. Wikipedia should not perpetuate incorrect forms. According to WP:MOS-JP (which is a guideline for Japan-related articles) for the Japanese emperors and empresses we should use the form Emperor/Empress {name}, which is a partial translation of their posthumous names. On posthumous names not all the empresses have them, as some of those names have been either lost or changed throughout the history. If any of the 諡号 shigō (posthumous name) or 追号 tsuigō (another form of posthumous name) names of an empress is known then it can be used, for example Tachibana no Kachiko who can also be called by her posthumous name "Empress Danrin". Otherwise, like many other ancient empresses, Shoshi should be styled as Fujiwara no Shoshi, as I can't find a posthumous name for her except "Jōtōmon-in" but she's never been commonly known as "Empress Jōtōmon-in" in sources, which can be realized by a single Google search [1] & [2]. She was first Empress, then Grand Empress, then Senior Grand Empress, and then an Imperial Lady — but she was Fujiwara no Shōshi all along. I had discussed it with Japanese Wikipedians a long time ago and they said "Posthumous names for Empresses were disappeared in late Asuka-Nara period (上代, 6-8 century), and Nyoin name (女院) started to be used instead". Furthermore they noted that Nyoin names aren't in use today anymore. It can obviously be seen on Wikipedia that almost all the articles about ancient Japanese empresses are titled "Clan name" 'no' "name". This page shouldn't be an exception. (it also makes it a WP:CONSISTENT move). Keivan.f Talk 04:59, 11 February 2017 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 07:31, 19 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Not yet convinced - as the author of the article, if the preponderance of the sources had not used "Empress Shoshi" I wouldn't have titled it as such. But they do. A google ngram shows results for Empress Shoshi and none for Fujiwara no Shōshi. I can understand using the clan name for her father, who was regent, but this woman was basically sent to be concubine at a very early age to an emperor, gave birth to two sons who went on to become emperors, the sources give her the title yet we want to strip it? Am interested in other opinions. Personally, I'd say keep the redirect for those who want the clan name, and for those of us who are English speakers and sometimes ignorant, keep this name for the article. But I won't fight about it. If it's changed, it's changed. Victoriaearle (tk) 02:00, 12 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: @Victoriaearle I'm not going to fight as well. We just want to have the most common or the most accurate name here. The main problem is that the current form is incorrect. A modern example would be Princess Diana and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although the first one is more common, the users chose the second one as they didn't want to perpetuate an incorrect form. Anyway, I know that Shoshi was an empress but I think she was probably known by a royal name among the people and unfortunately we don't have access to that name. As you say some sources refer to her as Empress Shōshi, then fine, I also let the users judge and choose the suitable title. ;)
 * Another thing that I would like to mention is that there's already a page on this wiki titled Fujiwara no Shōshi (Fushimi) (which is weird as there's no article about her on the Japanese Wikipedia). If the users agree and this page gets moved, we should make it clear what the title of either of these pages should be. Keivan.f  Talk 02:45, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose - moving to oppose because she would have been relegated to a small footnote in history without her patronage to Murasaki Shikibu. A search of Richard Bowring's 1996 translation of Murasaki's diary shows the word Empress being used, both in the translation and his commentary. We have to follow sources and if a pre-eminent scholar uses this name, then in my view, that's what we should be using for en.wp. Victoriaearle (tk) 17:57, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't intend to oppose you but it totally seems normal that a lady-in-waiting in the imperial harem used to refer to Shoshi as Empress, Her Majesty, or whatever title she used, in her writings. My point isn't that she wasn't an empress; she was and nothing can change that fact but including an imperial title in the main title of the article isn't always necessary. The article about the current emperor is also titled Akihito. Does that mean, per what you said, we want to strip his title? Of course not. Keivan.f  Talk 00:49, 16 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Note that the "no" in her name is a Japanese genitive case ending like English "'s"; it is not a negative word. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:02, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Not closely familiar with the topic, but this NGrams search shows Empress Shoshi to be the WP:COMMONNAME.  Also, regardless of outcome of this RM, the name "Empress Shōshi" should surely be restored to the lede as a notable name, undoing this edit. SnowFire (talk) 08:14, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The Ngram provided above only includes the books published between 1800 and 2000, while this one which also consists the books published between 2000 and 2008 obviously shows that the difference between the two diagrams has been reduced significantly. Keivan.f  Talk 01:00, 16 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.