User talk:Hotmifi

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Herbert Lom
You have provided a logical analysis of why you believe it should be Schluderbach rather than Schluderpachu, but names are not given by logic, and Schluderpachu is supported by sources. We need reliable sources to counter that. Materialscientist (talk) 23:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

There is clearly a source supporting the notion the famous French actress is called Brigitte Bardotová. However, when using Czech sources in another language, one needs to translate e.g. into English or German understanding what is the name and what is Czech grammar. Czech language (which I am fluent in) does not even try to maintain the original name when writing or talking about a person. Hence your sources are no sources at all but wrong (or no) translations of possibly Czech sources. Following your logic we would have to change the names of most female persons here in WIKIPEDIA by appending "ová" as long as we have reliable sources from Czech entries in encycopedias etc.

Having a source does not mean we do not have to read it properly for using it.

--Hotmifi (talk) 04:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Here is an even more striking example: The genuine German name "Georg von Potsdam" would be in any official Czech source "Jiří z Postupimu". Now what if you use this source in an English article, knowing the original name was ment in German (as with Austrian-born Herbert Lom)? Would you translate "Jiří" to "George" (English) or original "Georg" (German)? Would you translate "z" into "of" (English) or original "von" (German)? Und now how about "Postupimu"? Back to "Potsdam"? Or rather to the nominativ "Postupim" of the Czech name of Potsdam? You have three choices: keep it Czech altogether or (re)translate it into German or translate it into English. But certainly not partially. And "von Schluderpacheru" is partially translated. Not to forget: also the "p" in "Schluderpacheru" is a translation of "Schluderbacher" into Czech.
 * Sorry, with all due respect, this is WP:OR. (i) Names do not follow grammar or logic, and there are thousands of famous examples to that. All references in the article disagree with your changes, thus you must provide multiple reliable sources supporting the name you put in (wikis are not reliable references). (ii) Names are not translated, they sometimes transliterated, and we take that if the person was never mentioned in English-speaking sources (e.g. some Korean singers). This is not the case here - Herbert Lom is known in English sources, and we take his name as it is typed there, with no "corrections". Materialscientist (talk) 10:36, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

May I suggest then we leave out the "original" name altogether please? As there is not a single source confirming it the way it is spelled out here? Especially no "Charles" around. I would have to specify sources for changes, only, if my version contradicts existing ones. Which it does not. Either Wikipedia needs the effort of multilingual people (like myself, speaking 5 languages) or it keeps on misreading foreign language documents. Whatever you think is improving quality should be done. And the minimum standard for quality needs to acknowledge that different languages spell names differently. So when going from Czech to English, translating "Karel" (Czech) to "Charles" (English) (instead of "Karl" - German) and "ze" (Czech) to "von" (German) and leaving "Schluderpacheru" in Czech is crazy, sorry. I did not know one needs to specify sources for proper language use. May I suggest you look at bit deeper into my "Georg von Potsdam" example, to improve your understanding of proper name translation into not more than one language at once? --Hotmifi (talk) 10:49, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Please understand that we follow sources, we are not meant to analyze them. German is not relevant here, only Czech and English, thus the ze Schluderpacheru part stays, as it has no analogue in English. Herbert Karel Angelo Kuchacevič was converted to Herbert Charles Angelo Cuchacevich, and this is natural, as English doesn't support diacritic, and Karel is Charles, and even Czech sources repeat that. I would usually keep his stage name only, but his full name was mentioned in several sources. Materialscientist (talk) 11:11, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing up this Czech source. There is no mentioning of "ze Schluderpacheru" at all. And yes, in Herbert Lom's English entry you'll find German "von". Obviously since his birth certificate is an Austrian one. So if you go English all the way then his translated name would be: Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevich of Schluderpacheru. We need to check sources. If you would find a BBC page calling the German composer "Ludwick von Pethofen" you would doubt the source, wouldn't you? The BBC source is just plain faulty. --Hotmifi (talk) 11:40, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What usually happens for such obscure names (his birth name is obscure) is some newspaper picks up some name, and then it is echoed, thus yes, the chances for error are high. But still, we need reliable sources to write his name somehow - we may not follow transliteration rules or analogies, as there are so many exceptions (Tchaikovsky, Maskawa, etc, etc). Materialscientist (talk) 11:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

We just do not have a reliable source than. Other than a former radio station editor and announcer of Radio Prague who knows a bit about the czechification of Austrian-German names during the decomposing of the Austrian-Hungarian empire in 1918. --Hotmifi (talk) 12:00, 22 January 2012 (UTC)