Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unusual personal names (4th nomination)


 * 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. This list is well-sourced and notable. The subject is not inherently POV; as LinguistAtLarge suggests, perhaps the page could be renamed, or otherwise modified to make it NPOV, but that is an editing issue and is outside the scope of AfD. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 02:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

List of unusual personal names
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Relisted per Deletion review/Log/2009 April 17. I personally feel that this list violates WP:NPOV and introduces systemic bias. What constitutes "unusual" is inherently not neutral. Aervanath (talk) 04:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: In addition to the above listed Afds, there was also Votes for deletion/List of unusual personal names.--Aervanath (talk) 04:22, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. BTW, the above referenced AfD is quite insightful. If I cite policy here no more than the folks did back in 05, it's cause I agree completely with nominator. Drmies (talk) 04:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - violates WP:OR and WP:NPOV as what is "unusual" in one country or even region is usual or the norm in another. The "centralized discussion" is unpersuasive that consensus has supposedly changed for these subjective "unusual" lists, as many of the comments there boil down to "generally I think these are not a great idea but there's one I do like." Otto4711 (talk) 05:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The list is thoroughly backed by several dozen reliable and verifiable sources to support the claim of notability. This is the English Wikipedia, and the definition of unusual is based on the speakers of this language as documented by reliable and verifiable sources, all of which conclusively rebuts claims of WP:NPOV or WP:OR. Alansohn (talk) 05:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per the reasons stated by Alansohn. This article is considerably better sourced than the average article on Wikipedia. Krakatoa (talk) 06:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, what is an "unusual" name? Deciding what to include will be inherently subjective and therefore POV.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 07:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC).
 * Keep - referenced, and therefore, in this case, verifiable. It's not OR, and NPOV is followed, since "unusual" in this case is according to the sources. - jc37 07:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per Alansohn. Whether something is unusual is determined by the sources and language is a non-issue since we're talking in the English language Wikipedia. - Mgm|(talk) 10:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, there is nothing OR about such a list when the criterium is that these people are covered by sources because their name supposedly is unusual. We just combine information from multiple sources, which is what we do all over wikipedia. --Reinoutr (talk) 11:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, but with most strict assessment of notability of persons with unusual personal names in article. A person with an unusual personal name is not notable per GNG.  A person who has received however much media attention solely for having an unusual personal name is "ONEEVENT" still not notable.  See: that wee lass in New Zealand; Napoleon Einstein--Shirt58 (talk) 11:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per Alansohn and Reinoutr. Owen&times; &#9742;  11:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per abundant sourcing and generally acceptable presentation. I trust the OR tag is being addressed in some meaningful way? -- Banj e  b oi   13:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry but Delete, this article will never meet WP:NPOV and be properly sourced, the sources themseleves are whom the news reporters think that it's an unusual and interesting name. Opinionated articles and news sources aren't really reliable. Secret account 13:47, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as inherently POV and a magnet for nonsense. Stifle (talk) 15:08, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The general principle behind this article and similar ones was discussed recently(ish) at Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/lists of unusual things and the consensus of that discussion was that there is nothing in the policies cited above by those supporting deletion that states that "lists of unusual things" in themselves are deletion-worthy. To summarise the argument, it is that "unusual" is simply shorthand for "has been regarded by at least one reliable source as being unusual" and is a necessary shorthand for an article title - this was supported by a good majority of the contributors to the discussion. If there are other reasons why this particular article is deletion-worthy, let's discuss them. A discussion on issue which have already been resolved in the centralised discussion is not going to move us forward. SP-KP (talk) 17:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep There are numerous books and encyclopedias which list unusual names of this sort and so the notability of the topic is evident. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete This article has an inherent NPOV problem since there is no objective criterion for "unusuallness". The references do not actually demonstrate that a name is unusual, but rather that some particular group or person thinks they are unusual.  If kept, it would have to be renamed as "List of personal names various individuals believe are unusual", in which case it would clearly be an indiscriminate collection of information. Locke9k (talk) 18:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete inherently unverifiable and unsourceable since there is no global standard for "unusuallness" (in fact many things that are unusual in one place are common in others) and we're supposed to be writing a globally focused encyclopedia. The article as it stands is sort of incoherent -- Armand Hammer's name is included because it was made up by his parents; "Christine Daaé" is included because she chose to name herself after a phantom of the opera character (name itself doesnt' seem weird to me); "Joker Arroyo" is particularly misplaced -- it's his nickname, and pinoys love silly nicknames. I used to know a brother and sister named Pepper and Ginger Tahanke, whose grandfather was an ex-supreme court justice named Ding Dong Tahanke -- and no one in the philippines thinks any of this is unusual at all; Lindsay Ann Crouse, which is about as plain vanilla a name as one can find, is included because her parents allegedly had an unusual reason for giving her this name; and on it goes.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - It meets the notability standards. The article isn't defining what's unusual - it's merely commenting on places considered unusual. This is objective enough for me. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 21:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Multiple available sources. Mencken has an entire chapter on it, and there are many later works. Individual dispubted entries can be discussed on the talk p. as usual. if we deleted all pages about which something was in dispute, there would be nothing of much importance left. I note the previous nomination was only 3 months ago.   DGG (talk) 21:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep: There is obviously no clear definition of what is 'usual' or 'normal', but there is a common knowledge of what definitely is or isnt. Few things on that list would be in the grey area - the name with 1000 letters, Dick Assman and Jesus Christ would all be considered 'unusual' by the majority of the population. At the very least, -- NPOV rules should help create a good article, not prevent a good one from being written. -- Carbon Rodney 00:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Not neutral as there is no standard for 'Unusual' It is simply a list of names that some people think funny. Trevor Marron (talk) 00:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Per substantial coverage in reliable independent sources. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:56, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment "Substantial coverage in reliable independent sources" doesn't actually hold much water here: I can find an infinite number of reliable sources naming people as terrorists, but yet no one would ever countenance a List of terrorists, because it's inherently NPOV. Just because something has been labeled by an outside source doesn't mean the label is NPOV, it just means we're reflecting the POV of the outside sources, which is not what we should be doing.--Aervanath (talk) 05:39, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please see List of designated terrorist organizations. Also please see List of rivers by length.  The latter has numerous difficulties of definition and measurement, as it explains, but it prospers nonetheless.  Our articles are not required to be perfect and this article on names seems better than most. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Also see WP:NPOV - that policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic, each should be presented fairly without giving undue weight to a certain viewpoint. If you find reliable sources stating that some of these place names are not unusual, we'd gladly give weight to those sources' viepoints. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 07:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree that the content of the article will always have ongoing WP:OR, WP:NPOV, WP:NOTE and more problems. As Stifle so concisely said: it will be "a magnet for nonsense." Howsoever valid in and of themselves these discussion points are, they address that second question, which is not the point of contention in this AfD. So, back to first question: "Should this article itself be in Wikipedia?". With greatest respect to the (delete) participants, yes, there is no global or objective or WP:Unusual policy on what is "unusual". I would strongly suggest that what is "unusual" is independent of WP:POV. As Alansohn, Reinoutr, and other (keep) participants wrote, criteria for unusualness is extrinsic, and is to be founded on the reliable references for that something unusual.--Shirt58 (talk) 13:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Further Comment I would argue that the discussion has concatenated two discrete questions, the first question being "Should this article itself be in Wikipedia?" (the point of contention in this AfD), and a second question, "Will the article's content be completely unmanageable?".
 * Strong Delete as inherantly POV. What one source says is "unusual" another might say is perfectly normal.  At best we can say "these names may or may not be unusual", and Wikipedia isn't a place for speculation. These names would need to be universally cited as unusual.  Where I come from the name Mohammad is unusual, but its one of the most common names in the world. We can't be making judgement calls in our articles.  A meta-topic such as "the compilation of lists of unusual personal names", while nonnotable, at least has a degree of objectivity to it as the topic would objectively look at both sides of the issue. Diving straight in to this topic is akin to having an article named "list of funny-looking people" and include everybody who was called funny-looking in the news. Can this work the other way? Can we have the article List of normal personal names and cite every name which has been called normal in reliable sources?  That would be the case through the same line of reasoning by those arguing to keep this list, yet this example highlights the problems of POV articles.  We can have one for each opinion on every topic, and none of them would amount to anything more than hearsay.  Them  From  Space  06:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Up to this point, the main arguments for deletion are that this is original research and that it violates a neutral point of view. For the OR claim, I would kindly ask someone to explain how this is original research. I do not see any "unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position" in this list of names.  If any of the names can't be sourced, they should be removed. The topic of "unusual names" is by no means original research, as a quick Gbooks, Gscholar, Gnews search for "unusual name" would seem to indicate.  For the NPOV claim, I agree that adjectives like "unusual" can be inherently subjective, thus lending themselves to a non-neutral point of view.   This is easily fixed by either renaming the article to something more specific, or simply defining what "unusual" means for the purposes of the list.  Since other cultures and languages have very different criteria for "unusual" names, we also need to limit this to English-speaking cultures. (For example "Jesus" (Jesús) is actually a very common name in Spanish-speaking cultures.)  So, first I would move the article to List of personal names considered unusual in English-speaking cultures (hopefully someone can think up a more concise title), and then in the lead sentence define the constraints of the list. Something like: "This is a list of personal names normally considered unusual in English speaking cultures. For the purposes of this list, an unusual name is defined as a name based on or the same as an organization, company, website, fictional character, product, place, or country, or names which are common words not normally used as first names in English, names that intentionally contain a meaningful phrase, names adopted or given as a form of political protest or for publicity reasons, names which read as a double entendre, names which have received media attention for their length (long or short), names based on numbers or symbols, and palindromic names".  Giving the article clear constraints like that and requiring all entries to be sourced should take care of all the problems as I see it. — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  21:57, 29 April 2009 (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.