Talk:Shippegan Parish, New Brunswick

Requested move 13 August 2015

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

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 13:16, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Shippagan Parish, New Brunswick → Shippegan Parish, New Brunswick – Official spelling of parish is Shippegan, as shown in http://laws.gnb.ca/en/showfulldoc/cs/T-3//20150813; Shippagan is the official spelling for the town in that parish, but not the parish itself. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 15:28, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Processing a move request improperly posted to Redirects for discussion by. The redirect is not blocking this move request if there is consensus for the move. I am neutral unless I comment below. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:23, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - the provincial statute has Shippegan Parish, but the New Brunswick Provincial Archives and the census both have Shippagan Parish, plus all three seem to be consistent in using the same spelling for the town and the parish, rather than it being different spellings for each. Is it a case of a name that can be spelled either way, or one that has evolved from one spelling to another over time? New Brunswick is an officially bilingual province. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:37, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Support move per the analysis below. As for the analysis of sources, I'll add that the census is not likely to be authoritative for spellings versus other government documents, as the current Canadian federal government (which oversees Statistics Canada) has shown open contempt for both statistics and for non-English-speaking peoples, so the data quality is suspect. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)


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

Details on Spellings
The statute contains the official spelling of the parish's name, as does the Canadian Geographic Name Server. The PANB site seems to have been researched by summer students rather than people interested in the subject; an example is the confusion between the unincorporated community of Miramichi and the city of the same name in the Where Is Home? feature, incorrectly describing some communities near the former as having been incorporated into the latter. Until 1981, the town was spelt Shippegan, the original English spelling of the name, and the Shippegan spelling is still official for almost all uses; CGNS Shippegan search and CGNS Shippagan search illustrate the use of the different official spellings. Regulation 84-168, which details the local service districts in the province, concurs in spelling with the Territorial Division Act.

Summary: Shippegan is the official spelling (in both official languages) for the parish and most other uses according to both provincial statute and the Geographical Names Board of Canada. Shippagan is the official spelling (in both languages) for the town, changed due to it being a French community, and the colloquial French spelling has spilled over into other uses, but this does not make it official for anything other than the town, two other communities (one within the town boundaries), and a former provincial park. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 13:52, 17 August 2015 (UTC)