Talk:Johan Sverkersson

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Although it was disputed which name was the king's WP:COMMONNAME, I believe the sources that were provided by the supporting side have made a convincing case that "Johan Sverkersson" is the prevailing name among current-day RS. Accordingly, the strength of argument appears to favor the move of the king's article. For the son of Sverker I, I see a consensus here as well, as the arguments in favor of moving his article are based in policy and appear to be uncontested. (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:41, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• John I of Sweden → Johan Sverkersson
• John, Prince of Sweden (12th century) → Johan (son of Sverker I)

– Per WP:COMMONNAME. Both share the same name, but the king is the primary topic.

1. The Google Books search for "Johan Sverkersson" returns much more results than for "John I" Sweden 1222, and the results also include good-quality books from Brill and Cambridge University Press.
2. The article about the son of Sverker the Elder was originally created as Johan Sverkersson the elder and moved to current title without discussion. Per WP:UE the name should not be anglicized since the anglicized name is not used in the literature. In fact, there is not much English literature about him at all; I only found two mentions: Philip Line refers to him as Johan Sverkersson and Lars O. Lagerqvist as Johan (jarl Jon). The title could also be Johan (son of Sverker the Elder), Johan Sverkersson (12th century) or Johan Sverkersson the Elder, although the last one is not attested in English literature.

— Jähmefyysikko (talk) 07:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Not an improvement & practically impossible to pronounce for non-Swedes. Fine as is. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:41, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. "Prince" is misleading, as Sweden was an elective monarchy. Andejons (talk) 10:45, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. Mellk (talk) 19:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Google books returns double the hits for "John I of Sweden" & Crusades than "Johan Sverkersson" & Crusades. The latter name seems used only in narrow specialized sources which use nativized spellings exclusively, whereas John I is used on wider general works (the Wikipedia criteria). Walrasiad (talk) 08:49, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I dispute this finding. Here's the two searches on GBooks: John I and Johan Sverkersson. I have restricted the range of years to start from 1970, since 19th century literature did prefer the anglicized spellings, but the modern literature generally prefers native names. I do not know how Google counts the number of results on the upper right corner, but that number does not seem to be very reliable, as it varies when one changes from one page of results to another. Books also returns spurious hits, and one has to search the individual books to actually confirm that the term occurs there. For example, the search for "John I" gives the book Cambridge History of Scandinavia, but the term "John I" does not occur in that book at all. Unless there is another way, one has to resort to eyeballing the results, and I believe this shows that Johan Sverkersson is more common in modern literature. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 09:08, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed. You have to go to the end of the hit list to get an accurate count. "John I of Sweden" had clearly fewer hits: 24 as compared to 69 (and among the 24, several are from Wikipedia or mirror sites, but I saw only one such hit among the 69). Andejons (talk) 09:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even with your date restrictions, "John I of Sweden" still heavily outweighs "Johan Sverderkersson". And that's only a very specific phrase (there are other alternative phrasings like "John I, King of Sweden" or "Swedish king John I" and the like, which are not being measured.) Eyeballing the results you are hitting specialized academic works, which have recently taken the fashion of always nativizing spellings of everything. Which is fine in that narrow context. But Wikipedia is not written for specialists nor academics, but for the general public. So I will weigh general works more heavily. The current title is the best way to make sure this article reaches our readers. The proposal is not an improvement. Walrasiad (talk) 09:57, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Even with your date restrictions, "John I of Sweden" still heavily outweighs "Johan Sverderkersson". The number Google Books shows is not reliable, so which metric are you using? Studying the search results for crusades "John I of Sweden", one notices that the first three results mention "John I", but already the fourth (Urban 1980) and the fifth (Christiansen 1997) do not. For "Johan Sverkersson", it is only the twentieth source that fails to contain the exact phrase (Hermanson 2019 still does).
• WP:DIVIDEDUSE recommends that more weight should be placed on verifiable reliable sources than on less reliable ones, and that general reference works are preferred. Works like "Cambridge History of Scandinavia", "A Concise History of Sweden" and "Sweden, the Nation's History" are general histories of Sweden and Scandinavia, not some heavily specialized works, and perhaps hit the sweet spot between reliability and generality. These works refer to him as Johan Sverkersson. Works of a more general scope usually fail to mention him.

Jähmefyysikko (talk) 11:22, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The very books you refer to "of Scandinavia", "of Sweden", "Sweden" are specialist works, not general works. Readers already know it is about Sweden, and so may be unsurprised at authors choosing native Swedish spellings. But this is not "Swedish Wikipedia" or "Scandinavian Wikipedia", it is general Wikipedia. The article title must stand alone and without context. There is no expectation that Swedish kings will use obscure nativized Swedish spellings, any more than Navarre kings will be given nativized Basque spellings or Hungarian kings referred to by nativized Magyar spellings. That is why I give greater weight general works which are not exclusively about Sweden or Scandinavia.

I want to see how he is referred out of context. Is his spelling always nativized? Is he "Johan Sverkersson" in general histories, alongside other European monarchs? I see John I of Sweden alongside John I of France, John I of Castile, John I of Portugal, John I of Aragon, John I of Bohemia, etc.. Your specialist criteria for Johan Sverkersson would also lead to replacing all such articles with Jean le Postume, Juan Enriquez, João de Aviz, Joan el Caçador, Jan Lucembursky, etc. and force Wikipedia readers to be familiar with multiple foreign languages, and know which foreign spellings pertain to which countries, in order to guess who it is referring to.

I see from your personal page that you are interested in Medieval Sweden, and so nativized spellings may seem natural or obvious to you, or you come across them often in your specialist readings. But here you need to put on the hat of a general Wikipedia reader from elsewhere in the world, who is not so specialized. He will likely only come across him in passing in a general work, he will see "King John I of Sweden" and come here to Wikipedia to learn more about him. We want him to find this article with relative ease, and not throw unnecessary hurdles and obstacles. Walrasiad (talk) 16:59, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• The article title must stand alone and without context. Only for readers who are familiar with the topic. Anthony Albanese might mean nothing to a reader unfamiliar with Australian politics, yet the article title is perfectly fine for WP.
• obscure nativized Swedish spellings: The current evidence indicates that "Johan Sverkersson" is more common spelling than "John I of Sweden" in modern English literature. This is most likely not the case with "Jean le Posthume" vs "John I of France" or with those other monarchs, so the situation is not comparable. Which general works are you referring to?
• I want to see how he is referred out of context. Here are some indices from books that refer him as Johan Sverkersson next to some "Johns": [1][2][3][4] See especially the first one of these. There you will find John I of Aragon and those others next to Johan Sverkersson, out of Scandinavian context.
• general Wikipedia reader. The reader most likely comes across him with the most common name, whatever that is. For other spellings there are redirects, and alternative names should be bolded.
• There are two conventions that make up this name, and perhaps they should be discussed separately. The first one is whether to use the anglicized or the native given name, John vs Johan. The second one is whether to use the patronymic or the regnal number (by WP:CONCISE we do not use both). Ngram search shows that both anglicized and native forms of patronymic names are common (Johan being the more common one with a large margin), while "John I of Sweden" and its variants are too rare to show up in the search.

Jähmefyysikko (talk) 20:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, the current evidence shows John I of Sweden is more common, and your proposal is less common. And certainly so in general works. Even your cited examples either give "John I" right alongside it, or specify he is "king of Sweden" for recognizability. Your proposal does neither.

I'm sorry, but this is not sufficient. Russian Tsars are nativized as Ivan in English general works and easy to find. I'd expect a comparable preponderance of evidence on that scale, showing the nativized form heavily outweighing the translated form, to justify making the title more obscure and difficult for readers. But not only are you trying to argue on very small margins in specialist works, on the whole, your proposed name is actually less common, esp. in general works. This is nowhere near sufficient.

Wikipedia is written for the benefit of readers, not to satisfy the tastes of editors. It is important to keep that in mind. And your proposal is more cost than benefit. Walrasiad (talk) 23:50, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree about the reader. This is why we should be using modern name conventions instead of outdated ones. By the way, could you also comment on our twice-disambiguated John, Prince of Sweden (12th century)? Jähmefyysikko (talk) 04:18, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom, in line with current usage in reliable sources. Rosbif73 (talk) 07:28, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]