Talk:French Civil and Military High Command

Choice of title

The choice of title for this article was based on WP:COMMONNAME after significant examination of numerous different names found in English sources, but the evaluation was not trivial. The policy states that "[Wikipedia] generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)" and that was what I based it on. That said, the evaluation of which name was in the majority in English, was anything but simple, since I found numerous, some of which were minor variations of preposition usage, adjective distribution, or additional bits tacked on at the end, but others which were based on numerous names used in French. In addition, although I looked at many French sources as references, the choice of title was not based on them, but only on English sources.

Just to clarify one thing about French names, which is that is that French has a pair of terms for the name of the post underlying the name of the organization, and the holder of that post which are almost identical, where the English names are not similar, and this causes even more variation in the English names than in the French ones. The French terms are related in the same way that the English terms Presidency/President, or Foreign Ministry/Foreign Minister are related. With respect to this organization, the post is based on these two similar expressions in French, but note how English handles it:

• Commandant en chef (the holder of the post) – English: Commander-in-chief
• Commandement en chef (the post) – English: Supreme High Command (and other terms)

The point here being, English has no such post called "the Command-in-chief" we use Supreme High Command, or other terms, instead. If that wasn't enough, there is a further complication, which is that the organ underwent a name change in French, from the original name as a Commission (which also had various aliases) when Darlan was running it, to the Commandement after Giraud took over. In English, the earlier name is referred to as High Commission of France in Africa, and others. The Congressional Record of 26 August 1965, calls it the French high commissioner in North Africa in command of all French military forces in the region although that seems part title and part description; other terms are High Commissioner in North Africa. Mathglot (talk) 07:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)