Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)/Scandinavian sovereigns

I see historical precedent and 'commonname' usage to support implementing the use of the [commonly used in English] bynames of Swedish sovereigns up to and including Gustav Vasa (except the Danish sovereigns ruling during the Kalmar Union) and [Name]-[Ordinal]-[Country] construction for those from Eric XIV of Sweden onwards, as Eric "XIV" actually adopted the (inaccurate) ordinal and started the use of such names in Sweden. As an illustration of the problem of applying these names to earlier Swedish kings, take a look at the mess at Charles VIII of Sweden. Why on earth should we refer to someone far better known (and more accurately and less ambiguously known) as Karl Knutsson Bonde (usually by the same spelling in English) by such a confusing and inaccurate name? I do support N-O-C construction for the Danish Margarets and Christians, and for all Swedish sovereigns since Eric XIV, as well as all Norwegian monarchs since the dissolution of the personal union with Sweden in 1905 (Haakon VII of Norway onwards). Early Danish sovereigns are more problematic and should be taken on a case-by-case basis, but certainly N-O-C construction works for Danish sovereigns from Christian I of Denmark onwards. Some earlier rulers are far better known by bynames, but others may be well-known by ordinals. I really don't think it's too much to ask that we give the same consideration to these as we have given to English rulers. There has actually been discussion about a coordinated approach to naming articles of English sovereigns, apparently resulting in a consensus to apply N-O-C construction from 1066 onwards. I think it is time we have the same talk about Scandinavian sovereigns and establish some definition of how our naming guidelines apply to them. Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 11:03, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It bothers me that Charles VIII is referred to as Charles II. We shouldn't just invent ordinal numbers for the kings. It appears that a now banned user began the practice ? If anyone is googling for "Charles II of Sweden" he is likely to be confused.
 * To address your question, my opinion is: the most useful way of referring to the monarchs is to follow English language sources.  If you can reference your claim that Charles VIII is better known as Karl Knutsson Bonde, then that name is the best to use, and the article gets another reference. It shouldn't be too difficult to implement this practice for the Scandinavian monarchs.
 * Fred-J 13:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Eric XIV resulted from historical error - we should and do say this. So did Pope John XXIII. Nevertheless, in both cases, this is the number they used, and the number our sources use in talking of them. We should not pretend to correct this; any reader of ours who writes of them as Eric IX and John XXI  will fail to communicate, and will - after a period of pointless confusion - convince her hearers of her ignorance and ours. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * To clarify, I support keeping Eric XIV at Eric XIV, but using bynames for previous Erics (of which there are fewer than 13). I most assuredly agree with you that Wikipedians should not attempt to correct the inaccurate ordinals; hence my suggestion that avoidance of this futile pursuit strengthens the argument for bynames prior to Eric XIV (save for the Danish rulers during the Kalmar Union, of course). Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 14:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Eric XIV is fine – he did after all call himself that, and everyone has continued to do so even while knowing that it was incorrect. The trouble is the tradition to then start with him, and count backwards to give ordinals to earlier monarchs (there are certainly not 13 historical kings named Eric before him, nor 8 named Charles before Charles IX of Sweden). The Erics are a particularly fine example of why this is problematic, as the counting in all its anachronism will go fine back until Eric the Saint – but then run into shadow figures in a century with very scant sources, and a decision has to be made regarding which kings should recieve ordinals. Similar things happens for the Magnuses, where there are some people by that name which you might want to consider "Kings" – but this is certainly not beyond question.
 * I suspect these problems are part of why Swedish historians are no longer using ordinals for medieval kings, and are instead mainly using patronymics.
 * Andejons (talk) 07:58, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There is also the solution of using both number and epithet. The Ptolemies have a similar problem, for somewhat different reasons (which come down to: the numbering was imposed retrospectively) - and we use Ptolemy VIII Physcon. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 12:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think that works very well for cases like Charles VIII/Charles II/Karl Knutsson Bonde or cases like Eric VII of Denmark/III of Norway/XIII of Sweden/"Eric of Pomerania". When a monarch ruled over several countries, which ordinal do we use?  If we were to choose to go with Denmark (Eric VII) and use the common name cognomen (of Pomerania), we could conceivably arrive at "Eric VII of Pomerania", which makes no sense.  And what of Karl Knutsson?  I think the easiest and most sensible solution for Swedish monarchs is to simply use ordinals for Eric XIV and all Swedish monarchs since, and cognomens for all earlier Swedish monarchs (except the Kalmar Union years).  Norway was ruled by Danish and Swedish monarchs from the Kalmar Union up until 1905, so we need only worry about those before the Kalmar Union (better known by their patronymics in most cases, and by nicknames in a few) and those since 1905 (better known by their ordinals).  Danish monarchs are the ones that will still get sticky.  Even still, I would much rather go on a case-by-case basis and choose either a byname or an ordinal for each, rather than trying to use hybrid names. Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 00:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)