Talk:Xu (surname)

Fork?

Does this really make sense having 2 totally different surnames combined simply because in one dialect (Mandarin) they have almost the same pinyin? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:08, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Splitting into Xǔ and Xú--Prisencolin (talk) 23:35, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 09:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

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Xu (surname) → Xu (surnames) – Or alternatively List of surnames spelled Xu – This article currently bundles together 2 totally unrelated family names, 許 Xǔ (Mandarin) Khó (Hokkien) Heoi (Cantonese) Kóu (Teochew) of Xuchang (No.20 in the 100 Names), and 徐 Xú (Mandarin) Chhî (Hokkien) Tshêu (Teochew) of Yanshi (No.150 in the 100 Names), personally I'd prefer a split, redirecting Xu (surname) to the main dab at Xu, nevertheless that would require more discussion, so in the interim at least the title should reflect (plural) that it is about two unrelated surnames not a single surname. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:29, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:UE. If they have the same romanization, they're effectively the same name in English. A split to Xú and Xǔ or something would be fine. --BDD (talk) 17:41, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

How are wikt:homonyms the same? I agree a split to Xú and Xǔ would however be a bigger improvement than the restricted scope of the actual RM proposal. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:19, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose proposed move, but support the split to Xú and Xǔ. Steel1943 (talk) 05:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose move. Since this is English Wikipedia, the focus should be explaining to English speakers how a Xu name might have originated. There are probably people with Xu ancestors in English speaking countries who have no idea which it was originally, and would just like to know what possible origins the name could have. But I would support redirecting the "surnames" version here. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 05:27, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

What does "this is the English Wikipedia" have to do with whether these are two surnames or one? This is a surname used in China not about Chinese overseas (who wouldn't be Xu anyway in most cases) and the idea that the article is for Xu overseas who won't know their surname so we should misname the article as if it was one surname when the article immediately contradicts the current title in the first line makes no sense whatsoever. This is the point of the RM. The title fails WP:AT for Precision and Recognisability. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:15, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. There's no reason that various origins of the ENGLISH-language surname can't be discussed in the same article. older ≠ wiser 16:49, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. I understand where the nom is coming from, but with the same spelling, the different Xus should be addressed on one page. If we have enough information on the various Xus to justify separate pages, that's fine, but this dab/set index page ought to remain where it is. Dohn joe (talk) 18:43, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

As previous, no one supports all Springfields being discussed on one page. So someone please explain what then is the difference between a surname homonym and a city homonym? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 23 July 2016

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus, see comment below. No such user (talk) 12:58, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

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Xǔ (surname) → Xǔ – There's no reason as to why there is the (surname) to clarify the page. For 徐, the page does not have it. Opacitatic (talk) 02:45, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Support but you can probably just request a speedy rename for this.--Prisencolin (talk) 02:53, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

• I'm uncomfortable with  ̌ being the only thing disambiguating this article from Xu. There's also Xǔ (state) to consider. —  AjaxSmack  01:31, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
  • How would a minor state from 1000 years ago be more significant than a surname that is shared by millions of people across the world?--Prisencolin (talk) 23:55, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
  • That would make Xǔ (state) and Xú (state) (徐) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Opacitatic (talk • contribs) 10:15, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per AjaxSmack. Xǔ should redirect to Xu. The majority of users spell it like that without the inflection in English, so it's not really a suitable disambiguator. In fact, as with the comment in the section below, I think this page should be reverted back to its long standing title of Xu (surname). It was moved to the present title recently and without discussion, and the RM above already asserted Xu (surname) as the preferred title.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:54, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

• Comment It is pretty messy now. Prisencolin has split the original surname page into two – one for surname Xǔ (this one) and the other for surname Xú. While I appreciate being WP:BOLD, I'm not sure if this is the desired outcome for the reader: historical transcriptions have been haphazard, and a Western reader will have difficulties distinguishing the two. On the other hand, these are two different surnames, with different origins, and both pages are longish, so they would be better treated separately. I will notify WP:CHINA for input. Until the merge/split debate is concluded, I don't think continuing the RM as formulated would be beneficial, so I'm closing it until a wider consensus emerges. No such user (talk) 12:58, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
• There are different pages for several other languages, including all of the Chinese pages, so the two page setup in the only way to create interlanguage links to the others. There are two concepts with the same title, in fact they even have different names in other languages and dialects.--Prisencolin (talk) 16:52, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

  There was absolutely no consensus for a split, and it should not have gone ahead. This is a common surname across the ENGLISH speaking world, and the fact that it has two different origins in Mandarin is not relevant per WP:UE. If you really want to have separate articles on the two forms then they should be separate child articles, as we see at Li (surname).  — Amakuru (talk) 13:46, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

I do not suggest moving this page to Xǔ

The character 許 (xǔ) in Chinese has a lot of meanings, it is not simply a last name. To rename this page to simply 'Xǔ' would be akin to say... assigning the 'Smith' page to the 'Smith (surname)' result. Moreover, in parts of Henan and Shandong provinces, the character 宿 (normally pronounced sù), when used as a last name, is also pronounced as xǔ. There are many other instances where last names have not only the same pinyin, but also the same sound. For instance, the last names 顏/颜, 嚴/严, 言, 炎, 延 are all pronounced 'yán'.

If a change is performed if at all, it would be to move this page to Xu (surname) (许/許) or 'Xu (surnames)'. This will further differentiate 許 from 宿. I also suggest using 'Xu' instead of 'Xǔ' as I don't think many people doing the search for this last name will actually type 'ǔ' in the search field. Yen-Tzu (talk) 11:51, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

• Wouldn't you use the most common Hanyu Pinyin pronunciation? Also, the different Xu surname articles are all substantial and come from very different origins. If these pages were all on one, how would people know which surname is the one they are looking for? Opacitatic (talk) 00:38, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I would suggest everyone to see how we dealt with a similar problem with the Li surname after much discussion. _dk (talk) 05:36, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

It might be a good idea, although one thing that needs to be pointed out is that 李 is almost certainly the primary topic for Li (surname). I might make a RM later.--Prisencolin (talk) 06:25, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, if a final decision is made, then it should apply to all pages. It's a bit of a issue in both cases to have it separately or together. Would it be allowed to have the title named a Chinese character? It's also quite messy with some of the other pages especially those on Li as to what title it is under. 理's title is Li (surname 理） while 黎 is under the name of Lí (surname). Opacitatic (talk) 09:51, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The article for 黎 did not have a Chinese character in its title because it is the only Li surname to use the second tone so far. _dk (talk) 09:59, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Having the 黎 character in the name is probably better for WP:RECOGNIZABLE and WP:CONSISTENCY with other Han family name titles.--Prisencolin (talk) 02:15, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I reckon doing what happened to Li but also moving 黎 page so that they are all in the same format. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Opacitatic (talk • contribs) 07:46, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Another problem

No one seems to have noticed that there is only one interlanguage link to the Chinese wiki page when the English one is combined into a single page. This obviously doesn't help any readers who wish to find the Chinese pages.--Prisencolin (talk) 17:56, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate the problem, but do we allow the situation in the Chinese Wikipedia to define our strategy here in the English Wikipedia? It seems like a case of the tail wagging the dog. In English, and for the thousands of English speaking people with this name, it is just a single surname, not two. I would like to see a stronger consensus if we are to change that situatoin here.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:01, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

How about the consensus to split all of the Li names? These are literally two separate concepts with two separate origins; we don't combine Mercury (element) and Planet Mercury into the same page simply because they are the same name in English. Further, 許 and 徐 are literally different names in English when used in Korean or Hokkien etc. I believe there are a few Mandarin dialects where the "X" phoneme is different as well. --Prisencolin (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

If we have enough content to justify a split, then I'm all for it (for reasons explained in the colossal Li discussion (We really don't need to go through that all again (I don't want to))). _dk (talk) 22:49, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

This isn't about Chinese Wikipedia shaping our strategy. It also impacts all the other East Asian Wikipedias (around 8?). Also, these are two totally different family names but are both commonly used. Even with basic Chinese character knowledge it is clearly visible. I think doing what we have done with Li and Lu is best. Opacitatic (talk) 03:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Requested split

See rationale above. Previously, the various surnames Romanized as "Li" were split into Li (surname 李), Li (surname 黎), etc. so that should be the pattern we follow here. I think it's a good idea to use both tone markers and character for disambiguation, because A) there's not policy against this B) it isn't less WP:CONCISE, and has the added benefit of being NPOV because it doesn't favor Mandarin pronunciation. I'm not sure whether we would used simplified or traditional character for 許/许. This current article title may either be a DAB page or a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT into Xu (surname 徐), since that one is more common.--Prisencolin (talk) 02:19, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I have no particular objection to treating the history of each of the two names on separate pages if you want to, since there's just about enough information to justify that, as long as we don't forget that in English this is one surname, not two. Therefore the article here at Xu (surname) should at least be an umbrella article, similar to the one at Li (surname) (as was decided by the RfC on that very topic). And Xu (surname 徐) is a much better disambiguator than the previous one based on diacritics on the Pinyin. Most English speakers would not recognise or understand that.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:07, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to use both the character and tone marker for dab. On the contrary, I think it's more reasonable to ask a Westerner to recognize the whether or not a single line is angled up or down, than to recognize the difference between a bunch of seemingly arbitrary lines that form a character. For the record it should be pointed out that, while in most romanized Mandarin 徐 and 許 are both Xu or Hsu, however other systems the romanization is different. Korean they are Seo and Heo, in Hokkien they are Chee and Koh, even in the Gwoyeu Romatzyh system for Mandarin they are different and so on and so forth. --Prisencolin (talk) 20:07, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

There should be some sort of guidelines put in place as to whether the Chinese characters should be in Trad/Simp, the layout of page names and umbrella pages etc. Opacitatic (talk) 03:25, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Not suggested split these two Chinese surname with same pronunciation and about mix of Chinese words

Because this two Chinese language with same pinyin Xu with the most same pronunciation. This English Wikimedia could wrote international language inside because of "meaning". And please don't forget this Wikimedia page is about 2 Chinese surname and timely born to another places and with different of language surname.

About too many Chinese words inside this page was because Chinese got English name, so how do we let people know this person of the surname English and Chinese? Just only can wrote now. No other method!

So now can i delete your admin notice? I just delete it.

K.B.Cheng (talk) 19:14, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

The article is becoming quite lengthy. Based on WP:LENGTH it may be time for a split.--Prisencolin (talk) 08:55, 25 May 2020 (UTC)