Talk:Emperor of Japan/Archive 4

Naming the title of articles of Emperors of Japan (except recent 4 ones)

Yes, I know we need to come up with new naming scheme. I was thinking and doing some research but I couldn't find out one concrete convension shared by most of academics. I am not still unsure what scheme should be good. But I think this one is good enough.

1. Basically, don't put the title Emperor at all. Therefore, the title should be just Gotoba.-- First, while tennou is translated as emperor, calling them simply emperors can be misnormer. It's just like communist states don't call themselves communist state.
2. But because there are some conflicts, in that case, put ", Emperor of Japan". This is analogious to {name} web browser or {name} programming language. Don't forget comma.
3. This convernsion is only applied to pre Meiji Restoration emperors.

I hope we can agree with this. Cheers! -- Taku 05:05 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Er, this sounds workable. But for the post Meiji emperors, shouldn't they all be listed under their personal name? (Sorry if you answered this somewhere, but I looked on both the Emperor of Japan and List of Emperors of Japan pages, and couldn't find anything addressing this question. If Hirohito is named as such, why is his father "Taisho"? john 06:13 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry it's simply because I haven't yet answered. I probably will or someone else will hopefully -- Taku 21:39 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Since no one seems to show a objection to this proposal, I will start to rename the title of Emperors of Japan in days. -- Taku 15:38 15 May 2003 (UTC)

Just make sure you fix all the redirects. :) --mav

I delibrately leave most of links in old format that is emperor (something) of Japan because I am not sure this new scheme actually works and I want to see for a little while. -- Taku 20:25 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Maybe I excessively stick to uniformity, but I hate your ad-hoc scheme. Remember that many past emperor names derive from place names of Kyoto. This means that, as Wikipedia grow, the number of name conflicts increase. I've created some disambiguous pages and currently more than one-fifth of all articles conflict. I don't like this situation. In addition, "{name}" sounds somewhat impolite to me.
You think translating tenno into emperor is inappropriate, but it's mere a matter of translation. I think that feudalism is totally different from 封建制度 and that this mistranslation causes confusion on Chinese and Japanese history. However, I adopt feudalism as the English term for 封建制度 since it is widely used. Emperor is universally used for the translation of 天皇. So Wikipedia should follow this too. BTW, aren't the 1. and 2. of you proposal inconsistent?--Nanshu 23:23 21 May 2003 (UTC)

You have a point. Honestly, I failed to find out a good one. I noticed that there are a lot of conflicts with place-name, particuarly ones in Kyoto. Actually I thought such unlikely. Some may say we don't have to cover tiny names such as takakura but we will go to cover them eventually. It is a good way to name them so that they can last well-off in the future. Actually I am not certain tenno should be translated as emperor. There are some forces who think puting of Japan is necessary and some who don't. I actually don't take either side. They have a point and you have a point. I just want to settle the dispute.

First of all, from my research, I don't think use of emperor for tenno is so accepted. Dictionaries or books about Japanese history use tenno not emperor. While phrases like the Meiji emperor is common, Sanjo emperor or Emperor Sanjo seems not common in formal writting. Google shows such name with a number of pages but I believe it is due to lack of knowledge rather than accpeted usage. Besides, the trouble is ok now we decided to use emperor for tenno but then should we name foo emperor or emperor foo. The former is uncommon in English writing while the later certainly misleads people foo is the given name of emperor like western emperors.

So I reached the last one. Forget the format since any of them works. As is in Chinese emperors article, just put the name without emperor. But as we see, this doesn't work much because there are a lot of conflicts.

I think an old style, Emperor foo of Japan is certainly not what you would like. So my new proposal is put ", Emperor of Japan" to every emperor of Japan. Can we agree with this?

-- Taku 23:50 21 May 2003 (UTC)

"Emperor {name}" isn't confusing. Adding a note on Emperor of Japan and/or List of Emperors of Japan is enough. And I'm ready to add on each article Emperor' almost unknown personal name such as Takaharu (尊治; 後醍醐天皇) and Osahito (統仁; 孝明天皇).
Why do you think that "{name}, Emperor of Japan" is better than "Emperor {name} of Japan". I prefer the latter. Maybe it is a matter of preference. --Nanshu 23:19 22 May 2003 (UTC)

I prefer the former because Emperor of Japan can be seen as a translated word of tenno. If we have a English word, we use it. We use a romalized Japanese word only if we don't have such. Emperor of Japan seems fair enough as a translation word. Besides, the format "Emperor {name} of Japan" is deceptively similar to names in western monarchy. If we can, we should avoid misleading readers. -- Taku 03:00 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Look at Habsburg. There are "{name}, Holy Roman Empire" and "{name} of Austria". I'm unfamiliar with Western naming conventions, but they suggest that the latter doesn't necessarily mislead readers. And I feel a slight discomfort at calling Emperors by name alone. --Nanshu 02:27 24 May 2003 (UTC)

I havent been following this discussion, but right now the naming convention for Japanese emperors is remarkably confusing. Danny

Right. It is because I proposed a new convention and there seemed no objection so I started to rename but the trouble is there are a lot of conflicts that I thought unlikely. You can help us to discussion of the convention. -- Taku 23:53 25 May 2003 (UTC)