Talk:Viktor Ambartsumian

Requested move January 2007

 * Viktor Hambardzumyan→Viktor Amazaspovich Ambartsumian -This is the most commonly used name in English

This moved failed because the proposer did not follow the guideline steps for a Requested move see the section Requesting potentially controversial moves -Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Use of non-standard surname orthography
Ambartsumian is known throughout the English-speaking science literature in THAT way, and not the hybridized Armenian spelling seen in the article title. Yes, one can search the Wikipedia for Ambartsumian and succeed in being redirected here. But it is patently picking nits to insist on the Armenian spelling, when in fact he was a citizen of the Armenian SSR while that was a political entity. I would suggest making the other link the "hot" article and have Hambardzumyan point to it, rather than the reverse. Whoever has composed the H-word name probably has never done science research or history and has made a serious error in judgment. Antimatter33 (talk) 10:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. I am an astronomer, and I have always known him as 'Ambartsumian'. Whoever is conducting this campaign for this particular spelling of his name has, as my mother-in-law always said, "a tack in his head."


 * Please can't we fix this? This insistence on a spelling that no one uses anywhere is stupid and dumb. Bill Jefferys (talk) 03:30, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * To continue, this nonstandard spelling was not used by Ambartsumian himself, as far as my web searches have found. I searched the NASA ADS database, which contains most of the English-language astronomical/astrophysical articles in major journals as well as articles in other languages. I retrieved 587 articles and abstracts under 'Ambartsumian', and although not all of them were by V. A. Ambartsumian, many of them had him as author or co-author. It seems clear that when he was using the Latin alphabet, he preferred the spelling 'Ambartsumian'. There were abstracts of articles in English, French and German.


 * 'Ambartzumian' retrieves articles by one R. V. Ambartzumian. This may be Viktor's child, but I do not know. (The middle initial, I suppose, could stand for the patronymic 'Viktorovich' or 'Viktorovna'). 'Ambardzumian' yields no results. 'Hambardzumyan', the title of this article, retrieves only one result, by one T. G. Hambardzumyan, who is evidently not our subject. Another variant, 'Hambartzumian' retrieves one posthumously-written article about him, by Robert Djidjian.


 * Furthermore, in Russian, as the article says, he used 'Амбарцумян', again no indication that in publications other than in Armenian, he wished to indicate the initial "rough breathing" that I assume exists in Armenian (I do not know or speak Armenian, so I only presume that this is a correct inference). If he had wanted to indicate this as his preferred pronunciation, he could have indicated it by using the Cyrillic spelling 'Хамбарцумян', but he did not, to my knowledge, ever do this.


 * I believe that the case is very strong to use Ambartsumian's preferred spelling. There is every evidence that 'Ambartsumian' was his preferred spelling In all languages that I have found that used the Latin alphabet, as well as his preferred spelling in Russian.


 * The name of this article should be changed to 'Ambartsumian'. I do not believe that it is appropriate to use an odd spelling that this distinguished astronomer/astrophysicist apparently never used, instead of the spelling that he used regularly.


 * There would be no problem if after changing the name of the article and its text in this way, the beginning of the article would provide the Armenian pronunciation of the name in IPA and even provide an OGG Vorbis link to a spoken version.

Bill Jefferys (talk) 01:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Requested move
Viktor Amazaspovich Ambartsumian

V. A. Ambartsumian, Theoretical Astrophysics. Translated from the Russian ("Teoreticheskaya astrofizika", Moscow, 1952) by J.B. Sykes, New York: Pergamon Press, 1958 V. A. Ambartsumian, A Life in Astrophysics : Selected Papers of Viktor Ambartsumian, edited by Rouben V. Ambartsumian, New York: Allerton Press, 1998, ISBN 0-89864-082-2 —13:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)Kshahb (talk)
 * Viktor Hambardzumyan → Viktor Amazaspovich Ambartsumian —(Discuss)— This is the most commonly used form in English.  Examples:

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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 proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 23:55, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Viktor Hambardzumyan → Victor Ambartsumian – WP:COMMONNAME Ե րևանցի  talk  00:24, 27 December 2013 (UTC) Even though he's Armenian and the correct transliteration of his last name would be "Hambardzumyan", "Ambartsumian" (the Russian transliteration) is much more common in academic as Google Books shows:
 * "Victor Ambartsumian" - 921 results
 * "Viktor Ambartsumian" - 674 results
 * "Viktor Hambardzumyan" - 36 results
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

Requested move 6 December 2019

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

The result of the move request was: moved as requested per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 04:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Victor Ambartsumian → Viktor Ambartsumian – Most authoritative sources spell his first name Viktor. --Ե րևանցի talk 14:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC) —Relisting. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:51, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

LoC, Britannica, NYT, The Royal Society, American Astronomical Society. Also, Google Ngram shows that Viktor is increasingly favored over Victor, in his case.


 * Comment/Support. In the previous move request you asked to change the last name, but also the first name from ViKtor to Victor - now you ask to change the name back. Looks a bit weird to me. However I support the Viktor option as Russian name Viktor is usually spelled with a K (which is also supported by Wiktionary) Less Unless (talk) 14:28, 14 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Support' makes sense. per nom. Étienne Dolet (talk) 07:47, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Support Per WP:COMMONNAME i.e. nom. - LouisAragon (talk) 16:55, 25 December 2019 (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.