Talk:Maria Theresa of Savoy

Question about this article's correct title

I'm hoping that someone here can clarify the French convention for her title, relative to MOS:BIO. Maria Theresa was born a princess (the daughter of the King and Queen of Savoy) and although her husband spent much of his life with the title of a royal count, he did reign as king for more than 5 years as Charles X, Roi de France. I presume that since Maria Theresa was of royal birth, she would not have been considered merely Charles' consort but rather, a queen in full. Is it not Wikipedia policy for a biographical article to refer to the person by the highest rank, title or style they held in life? For example, the title of the article on John Adams (Major General) lists him at the highest rank he held, even if it was for a relatively brief time. If that's the case, shouldn't it more correctly be "Queen Maria Theresa of France", or perhaps "Maria Theresa (Queen of France)"? Bricology (talk) 20:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

This article is titled in compliance with NCRAN, the guideline used in naming most of Wikipedia's articles on royalty. Maria Theresa was the daughter of the King of Sardinia, whose descendants would later expand their realm by annexation and reign as kings of Italy. Nonetheless, by tradition members of this dynasty did not use the suffix "of Sardinia" or "of Italy", and are known instead as "of Savoy" which, while part of the territories ruled by the kings of Sardinia (and, later, of Italy) was itself a duchy, never a kingdom. Members of that dynasty, other than the ruling duke, have been known at least since the 17th century as princes and princesses of Savoy. Yes, her husband was a French royal prince who, however, used a noble rather than a princely title, Count of Artois, because that was the French monarchical tradition. And just as the daughter-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II is known as "HRH the Countess of Wessex" because her title derives from that of her husband, from her marriage until her death Maria-Thersea was known as "Countess of Artois". The convention, per NCRAN, is that once a royal wife has been dead for a while (usually, beyond the life span of most contemporaries who knew her as Comtesse d'Artois), her article reverts from her married title to her birth name, e.g. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Anne Boleyn, Mary of Teck. Although this is true of queens consort, which Maria Theresa never became because she died before her husband became king of France, it's also true of wives of royal princes: the reason is that royalty historically used relatively few given names and a limited number of titles (there are at least seven British women known by the name/title "Queen Mary" and four "Anne"s who were Duchesses of York), so that it's seen as helpful to readers to distinguish them from one another by birth name. Ergo, "Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy". FactStraight (talk) 22:39, 30 April 2016 (UTC)