Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Finnish)

This is a policy proposal for a unified Wikipedia policy on spelling Finnish names and using the Finnish letters ä, ö and å. The proposal suggests that in spelling Finnish proper names, the Finnish letters be used. It follows the proposed Naming conventions (Swedish) in outline.

The proposal is based on the fact that Finnish letters are already being used consistently on Wikipedia and on other online encyclopedias, that omitting them removes essential information from Finnish proper names, and that including them creates no additional trouble or difficulty.

Finnish letters are discrete letters of the alphabet, as opposed to Latin letters with added diacritics, and therefore are a separate matter altogether from diacritics.

Proposed convention
When spelling a Finnish proper name:


 * use the letters ä, ö and å (and the capital letters Ä, Ö and Å) as in the original Finnish-language name in both the article text and title
 * create a redirect to that page from the same name, but with ä, ö and å replaced by a, o and a respectively
 * replace ä with a, å with a and ö with o in category sortkeys to conform to English alphabetization
 * alphabetize ä, å and ö as a, a and o respectively to conform to English alphabetization

Scope
This convention applies to names originating in the modern Finnish language; not to Scandinavian names. If a historical Finnish name is usually "translated" into English, then the translated form will be used; it will be noted that this is very rare and will generally only apply to historical noblemen, churchmen and similar figures, never to modern Finnish proper names.

Diacritic-related guidelines do not apply as the letters in question are discrete letters of the alphabet, not letters with diacritics. They do apply, however, to Finnish proper names that use diacritics (e.g. Markku Alén) normally.

There is also a suggested guideline for hockey player names at Naming conventions (hockey) but as this policy proposes to be an all-Wikipedia general policy, it would supersede this policy proposal. It is suggested that it would be more sensible to implement one general policy for all Finnish proper names instead of an occupation-specific policy.

Rationale
The basic rationale of this proposal is to create and implement a general Wikipedia policy on Finnish proper names.

It is proposed here that Finnish proper names be spelled with the Finnish letters ä, ö and å because it is standard Finnish practice and no rules or guidelines exist that suggest they should be replaced with a or o. Most Finnish Wikipedia editors will automatically insert the proper Finnish letters and correct existing entries that lack them, and have done so consistently; every entry at List of Finns is spelled with the Finnish letters. Nevertheless no Wikipedia policy on this exists.

There is a large difference in pronunciation between, for example, a and ä. The substitution of a or o for the Finnish letters also often breaks the vowel harmony of a word, making it practically unpronouncable in Finnish. In contrast, there are some, albeit rare, cases where replacing the Finnish letters would make two different names undistinguishable; for example, both Harkonen and Härkönen are Finnish surnames, and if the Finnish letters are replaced with a and o, the distinction is lost. The Finnish letters thus carry important information relating to the pronouncing and differentiating of Finnish proper names, and should therefore not be removed.

Retaining the Finnish letters does not make Finnish proper names significantly less recognizable to people who are unfamiliar with them (e.g. Eero Järnefelt vs Eero Jarnefelt); the policy of including redirects (e..g Eero Jarnefelt) makes the articles equally accessible to users without easy keyboard access to the Finnish letters.

It will be found below that both other online encyclopedias and Wikipedia use Finnish letters consistently.

Other Wikipedia policies and conventions
Other Wikipedia conventions that touch on the matter are:


 * Naming conventions:

"Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."

It is demonstrated below that for names of most Finnish people, it is common usage to use Finnish letters. It is argued above that using Finnish letters does not impair easy recognition. The mandate to create redirects in this policy will make linking to those articles easy for all users.

Naming conventions (common names):

"Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things."


 * Naming conventions (use English):

"If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works. This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources. For example, Christopher Columbus, Venice."

It will be found below that online encyclopedias use Finnish letters, and the Google test comes out decisively in favor of using them. Also, the Disputed issues section of the WP:UE page lists using Scandinavian letters, which would also apply to Finnish letters since no official consensus exists on them.


 * Naming conventions (people):

"General Wikipedia Naming Conventions start from easy principles: the name of an article should be "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things"."

Google and other online reference sources indicate that Finnish names with Finnish letters are generally more common that without, and it is pointed out above that omitting Finnish letters may potentially cause a naming conflict. The guideline does not deal specifically with either diacritics or letters of the extended Latin alphabet.


 * Naming conventions (city names):

"Europe

In absence of a common English name, the current local name of the city should be used."


 * Naming conventions (places)

does not address the issue of Finnish or Scandinavian letters in place names.

Online encyclopedias
Encarta uses Finnish letters, e.g. Frans Emil Sillanpää

The online Encyclopedia Britannica uses Finnish letters, e.g. Marja-Liisa Hämäläinen

encyclopedia.com uses Finnish letters, e.g. Hämeenlinna

infoplease.com uses Finnish letters, e.g. Frans Emil Sillanpää

Elsewhere on Wikipedia
WikiProject Norway similarly uses Norwegian letters when referring to Norwegian place-names and people (e.g. Nord-Trøndelag, Erik Jørgensen). Also, Naming conventions (Swedish) advocates the same approach to Swedish.

All entries on List of Finns already use the Finnish letters, as well as those on List of cities and towns in Finland.

The Google test
WP:GOOGLE: "Especially when trying to determine the frequency of use of diacritic vs. non-diacritic versions of a word, the internet (and therefore Google) is extremely biased towards the non-diacritic versions. This is often more an example of laziness and cluelessness of those who created the webpages than a real test of usage." The same can be reasonably applied to Finnish letters. However, the Google test results for Finnish letters still support using them:

Searching English-language pages, Frans Eemil Sillanpaa (searched for as "Sillanpaa" +Frans -Sillanpää to account for variant spellings and omission of Emil/Eemil) gives 411 hits. The same parameters, but for Sillanpää -Sillanpaa gives 12,700 hits.

Anneli Jäätteenmäki gives 20,600 hits; Jaatteenmaki only 820.

Simo Häyhä gets 505 hits; Simo Hayha 277.

Hameenlinna gets 123,000 hits, while Hämeenlinna gets 194,000 hits.

A more decisive majority in place names is Jyvaskyla with 457,000 hits, in comparison to Jyväskylä with 1,020,000 hits.

Finnish sports personalities, however, seem to be an exception: Kimi Räikkönen gives 55,000 hits; Raikkonen 731,000. Teemu Selanne gets 215,000 hits, while Teemu Selänne gets only 870.

Less well known Finnish athletes conform to the same pattern as other names: 122 hits for Paavo Yrjölä as against only 36 for Paavo Yrjola.

The discrepancy would seem to be an instance of the "laziness and cluelessness" alluded to in WP:GOOGLE. Even if a Google search indicates that the names of internationally famous sportsmen are biased toward not using the Finnish letters, it is proposed that in view of the sample given here, this is an exception rather than a rule, and that the names of sportsmen should conform to the standard policy for Finnish proper names.

The results do conclusively establish that Finnish letters are not routinely omitted in English text, and that Finnish proper names spelled with Finnish letters would seem to be at least equally common, if not more so, than those without the Finnish letters.

Related policy proposals

 * Naming conventions (Swedish)
 * Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)

Related Wikipedia policies

 * Naming conventions
 * Naming conventions (people)
 * Naming conventions (use English)
 * Naming conflict
 * Naming conventions (names and titles)
 * Naming conventions (places)
 * Naming conventions (city names)