Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/English surnames of Norman origin


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 21:47, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

English surnames of Norman origin

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I had to read this article three times to decide if this is "encyclopaedic" or more of an essay with political undertone. I think it's the latter. In a nutshell, the article repeats most of that is already covered in History of England but introduces a WP:POVFORK by referring to William the Conquerer as "bastard son with spurious claim..." and goes on how French language, culture and names entered England. What follows is a badly sourced mini-history of England with some examples of French names written essay style. The article ends with a call-to-action to other Wikipedians to compile a list of Norman names with explanations and a political statement about how the Norman invasion was the first and EU membership was the second time England was taken over. I can't help but feel that this is some kind of "witch hunt" on people with Norman (i.e. "invader") names. Overall, I think the article is beyond salvageable as it would need a fundamental rewrite to discuss naming history from a neutral point of view. pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 08:55, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 08:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 08:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 09:00, 25 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOR. The listed reference of The Norman people and their existing descendants in the British dominions and the United States of America has no page numbers so we would have to trace through the book just to ensure verifiability. The subject doesn't seem notable. There are several books about English/British surnames but none that address Norman ancestry as a subject save the one listed. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 09:23, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete Poorly sourced essay (there is one borderline (from a brief examination) possibly acceptable 1874 source in the article which doesn't seem the best and is listed as the whole book as a reference). Fails NOR. Subject could possibly be notable, the current article requires a dose of WP:TNT. Icewhiz (talk) 09:47, 25 October 2017 (UTC) Per comment below.Icewhiz (talk) 13:58, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOT. This is a personal essay filled with unsourced or poorly sourced assertions.  The topic is real, and is as old as post British snobbism - did you think that Jane Austen chose Mr. Darcy (surname) randomly?  An article cold be written on this. topic.   This is not it.  WP:TNT.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:17, 25 October 2017 (UTC) See below.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:42, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * We agree the underlying topic is notable. However, don't our policies call for weak articles on notable topics to be improved, or flagged for improvement -- not deleted.  If much of the current article is original research, then why not merely keep the article and trim the part that lapses from OR?  Geo Swan (talk) 12:13, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I understand if you do not like the style. I have always treated Wikipedia as being able to include the important aspects without stogy mechanisms. In the whole article on the Magna Carta for instance it never says that the absolute most important thing about it is that it made the sovereign subject to the laws. It said what laws he was subject to but never discussed the underlying concept that was foreign to the whole world at that time. So change the style. And yes I think the whole of Wikipedia is getting stodgy and mechanical. For that I go to Britannica. But to say it is not important or a concept in itself that people should be able to look up, that is incorrect. If you look at my discussion page I tried to find a page that discussed this before I started the page. And it is interesting, not droll. If you wanted to know why Bucket is pronounced bouquet, where do you want to send them? It is not political The invasion was almost a thousand years ago. If you have English blood, you are part Norman.Hotspur (talk) 19:30, 25 October 2017 (UTC)Hotspur
 * Keep The current article may lapse from WP:NOR. But what matters is not the current state of the article, but whether the underlying topic is itself notable.  I don't think there is any question as to whether it is, because this is the kind of thing Linguists write their Masters and PhD theses about.  Nominator wrote: "I had to read this article three times..."   Warning!  This is not how you should decide whether an article merits deletion.  Rather you should comply with WP:BEFORE, and make a couple of web searches, so you can independently arrive at an informed conclusion as to whether the article's underlying topic measures up to our inclusion criteria.  Please don't ever call for the deletion of an article merely because it is weak, when the underlying topic is notable.  Geo Swan (talk) 12:07, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I like being "warned" with some accusation about not doing WP:BEFORE. I did clearly state in my closing comment that I agree that such topic may warrant being highlighted - just not as essay, with OR and all sort of colour political reflection. Hence WP:TNT. I am baffled by the statement that editors should effectively ignore a full understanding of an article which is being assessed (which sometime requires further reading) and instead come to a view based purely on external factors. I would argue that it is exactly a lack of proper time to review that allowed this colourful, tendentious article to be uncurated and unchanged for half a year. Geo has essentially nuked the article so that only debris is left (thank you for that), the question remains if the stubby remainder still warrants to be here or possibly may be redirected/merged. The article Anglo-Norman language reflects on many elements that may also find their way into an article about names. Additionally, Anglo-Normans contains a rather long list of Norman families, in many cases with their own articles and etymology for the names. This may be a very personal view, but I'm not a big fan of forks until such a point where sufficient material has been collected to aid readability and comprehension of a wider complex of topics.pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 15:42, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , our policies, sadly, are in a constant state of flux. They used to be very clear on this point.  Articles on notable topics that had problems that were fixable were to be fixed.  We tag them for improvement.  We stubbify them, to the point where paragraphs that lapsed from NPOV, NOR, or copyvio, were trimmed.  You refer to WP:TNT, one of our many wikidocuments that is an essay, one I had not read, until today.  In general policies trump guidelines, and guidelines trump essays.  In practice there are a few essays that enjoy such widespread acceptance -- like WP:ATA -- that they might as well be official wikidocuments.  But I don't accept that TNT is one of them.  I see it as its preamble warns -- an essay with no guarantee it is broadly accepted.  Since it contradicts the last version of WP:DEL I studied closely, I put very little stock in its advice.
 * You wrote: "I'm not a big fan of forks until such a point where sufficient material has been collected to aid readability and comprehension of a wider complex of topics". Ah.  You've touched on a sore point for me.  A lot of wikipedia contributors think it makes sense to take articles on perfectly adedquate topics, and shoehorn one, into another, simply because they are related.   No offense, but this is almost always short-sighted and a grave disservice to our readers.  Our readers intelligence deserves respect.  Our readers freedom to jump from topic to topic, in the way that serves them best, deserves respect.   You ask whether this topic is a mere subset of Anglo-Norman language.  Again, no offense, but let me suggest you are overlooking that these two topics, anglo-norman language and english surnames of Norman origin have DIFFERENT sets of topics they are linked to.  In the ideal wikipedia, every notable topic that this article was related to would exist, and there would be a pair of bidirectional links between each related article.   If I am not mistaken the Normans also conquered and ruled Sicily, for a time.  (If I am not mistaken the original root of the Mafia was that it was an underground Sicilian resistance movement opposed to the Norman occupiers.)  So this article should contain a link to Sicilian surnames of Norman origin.  After England the Normans went on and occupied some or all of Ireland.  So this article should link to Irish surnames of Norman origin.  The Normans were not the first Viking style people to occupy England.  At the time of Alfred the Great Danes occupied half of England, the Danelaw.  So English surnames of Danish origin should link to this article, and vice versa.  This is the English language wikipedia.  There may be few scholars who have written, in English, about Hungarian surnames of Austrian origin, or Dutch names of Spanish origin.  My point is that the unexamined assumption in your suggestion is that anyone interested in English surnames of Norman origin has to be just as interested in the Anglo-Norman language, and you seem to be overlooking the possibility that a reader could want to read about these surnames who has zero interest in Anglo-Norman language.  If I am interested in surnames whose source was foreign occupiers I sure wouldn't want to plough through an article on each foreign invader's language, in hopes it contained the information I really wanted.  Should the article on Anglo-Norman language link to English surnames of Danish origin, or Irish surnames of Norman origin?  No, of course it shouldn't.  In addition, if we took your merge suggestion, we would have less useful watchlists, the "what links here" button would be less useful.  When two articles that can stand on their own are merged, this robs people of the option of only putting the topic they are interested on their watchlist.  If the article they are really interested in is shoe-horned into another article, merely because they are related, and they remember to add the merge target to their watchlist, their watchlist will give them a lot of time-wasting false-positives, when someone edits the merged article, but adds material about the other topic.  Geo Swan (talk) 23:47, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , this additional information says Norman origin surnames, like Dubarry, Duhamel and Dupuy, are not traced to speakers of Anglo-Norman language, at all. French refugees brought these previously absent Norman surnames to England, centuries after the Norman conquest.  I suggest this further erodes the value of merging this article to Anglo-Norman language  Geo Swan (talk) 01:17, 27 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Hold the presses -- I replaced the questionable version with a stub, but a properly referenced one. I think everyone agrees that the underlying topic is notable.  Those calling for deletion objected to the previous version lapsing from WP:NOR.  I think their concerns are now moot.  I recommend keeping the article, and I would encourage the author of the version that lapsed from OR to discuss what kind of references, and changes in style, others think would be necessary if he or she were to re-incorporate some of their original contribution back into the article, before actually re-incorporating anything.  Geo Swan (talk) 12:53, 26 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep per functional stub following HEY by Geo Swan.Icewhiz (talk) 13:58, 26 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep i was interested to learn that Robert the Bruce's family name was originally de Bruis, from Normandy. Such history is notable and should be kept per our editing policy. Andrew D. (talk) 17:54, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * DElete as having no useful content. If it was a list of surnames, which implies that the ancestor came over with William I, it might have been worth having; but it is not.  Peterkingiron (talk) 18:09, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Is there any chance you could return her, and explain yourself in more detail?
 * In particular, you write the aricle has "no useful content".. Well that is not a criteria for deletion.  It is not up to you and I, to us wikipedia contributors, to use our personal judgement, as to whether topics are notable.  Rather we are supposed to rely on whether the authors of reliable sources wrote about the topic.  If RS write about a topic you or I think is pointless, our choices are: (1) grit our teeth, and work on the article, neutrally using the references we personally disagree with; or (2) ignore that topic, and reserve our personal efforts for other articles.
 * You write: "If it was a list of surnames, which implies that the ancestor came over with William I, it might have been worth having..." Excuse me, but this sounds like a tacit acknowledgement that you agree that the topic of English surnames with Norman origin is, in fact, a notable topic.  Our deletion policies seem pretty clear on this.  When a contributor thinks a topic is notable, but they think the current state of the article is weak, they are not supposed to argue for its deletion, they are supposed to either improve it themselves, or call for its improvement on the talk page, or through tags.
 * With regard to your assertion the article should list the surnames of those Norman invaders who came with William the Conqueror... No offense, but you did read the article, before you called for its deletion, didn't you?  In 1066 no one used surnames!    The first documented use of a surname was recorded almost 80 years later.  That is right in the article.   This means no occupier who accompanied "William the Conqueror" brought a surname with him in 1066, because none of them had a surname.  Norman French was the language used in the English court for over one hundred years, and presumably used by Norman occupiers.  Prior to the adoption of surnames, in the twelfth century, no one in England, not even Kings and nobles, used surnames.   Check House of Normandy -- the dynasty "William the Conqueror" came from.  Known of the individuals in his family had a surname.   The general adoption of surnames, in England and France, occurred in the twelfth century.  That is why later French refugees from Normandy brought previously unknown Norman surnames to England, when they arrived in the fifteenth century.  Norman people in England adopted one set of Norman-origin surnames, and Norman people in France adopted a different set of Norman-origin surnames.
 * If you still think the article should be deleted... if you think you have a policy compliant justification, then please return here and try to explain that justification more fully.
 * If you don't return here to offer a clear policy compliant justification I am going to recommend the closing administrator discount your opinion. Geo Swan (talk) 11:48, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. An immense number of source are available for this. A proper llist can and should be added--it would in my opinion not be limited to those who came over with the Coquerer, but anyfamily name from the period --many came over somewhat later than that.  DGG ( talk ) 08:01, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep, changing iVote, as I said above, the topic is real and notable, and the article has now been upgraded to a valid stub.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:42, 31 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.