Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 April 30

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April 30

Bonde, Carl Bonde

What's with the colon in Carl C:son Bonde and other Swedish names? Clarityfiend (talk) 08:55, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Colon (punctuation)#Abbreviation mark --Viennese Waltz 09:06, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

In the case of the late musician Björn J:son Lindh and his family, the double name "J:son Lindh" – including the contraction – is legally accepted as a familiy name, and the name is never expanded to the original "Janson" from earlier generations. --T*U (talk) 10:39, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

They abbreviate for just two lousy characters? How lazy is that? Clarityfiend (talk) 19:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Robert W Floyd abbreviated his one-letter middle name as "W." – how industrious!  --Lambiam 21:12, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

That's quite interesting. So how would you pronounce Carl C:son Bonde etc if you didn't know what it stood for?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

You use the spelling form of the single letter and add -son: "C:son" becomes 'se-son', "J:son" becomes 'ji-son' etc. Björn J:son Lindh used the name "Jayson Lindh" when performing in the US. --T*U (talk) 10:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Is it used just before "son"? Clarityfiend (talk) 19:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

The use of : as abbreviation mark is not limited to this, but I cannot offhand think of other uses in person names. But there are lots of examples from other contexts: S:t and S:ta for 'sankt'/'sankta' (saint), G:a for 'gamla' (old). Also used in inflexions of acronymes as in tv:n (definite form) and EU:s (possessive). Also used in ordinals 1:a, 2:a, 3:e. --T*U (talk) 20:37, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

I think I remember one or two of the framers of the US constitution using a colon as an abbreviator in their forenames, or people like that from that era. Temerarius (talk) 05:58, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Th:ks all. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Evelien vs Eveline

See nl:Evelien Eshuis and (Dutch-language) sources [1][2] — from what I can tell, "Evelien" is the WP:COMMONNAME and her birth name was Eveline, so is Evelien considered a nickname? It seems odd for her to just modify the spelling a bit. I wanted to check how that would be presented in the first sentence of an article about her. Maybe something like "Eveline Luberta 'Eveline' Eshuis is a ..."? DanCherek (talk) 16:01, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

What's the source for her birth name being "Eveline"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:28, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, misstatement on my part. I have not identified her birth name. What I originally meant was just that "Eveline Luberta Eshuis" seems to be her full name based on the sources above. DanCherek (talk) 16:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Since the official Parlement web site use the name form Evelien, it seems that this is her de facto name, even if her formally legal name is Eveline. I suggest that the article use the same formula as the Parlement source does (under the heading "Voornamen (roepnaam)" [according to Google Translate 'roepnaam' means "nickname"]): "Eveline Luberta (Evelien) Eshaus is a ...". The article title should be "Evelien Eshaus" as the WP:COMMONNAME. --T*U (talk) 17:14, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

On en.wikipedia, yes, because WP:COMMONNAME is an en.wikipedia local standard. I have no idea if nl.wikipedia has the same standards. It doesn't have to. Other than WP:5P, every individual Wikipedia develops their own guidance on these matters that makes sense for the individual language. --Jayron32 17:55, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, thank you both! I'm planning to write an enwiki article about her, so my question was meant for that. Best, DanCherek (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Are you sure it isn't spelled Evil-Lyn? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Just to touch on a couple of misconceptions above. First, a roepnaam is not precisely equivalent to a nickname; it is simply the name someone is known by in everyday life and may actually coincide with one's full first given name. (For example, if a person's full name is John Smith and they are called "John" in everyday life, then "John" would be their roepnaam, although would not ordinarily be called a nickname in English. If they were instead known as "Jack", then that would be both their roepnaam and their nickname.) Second, "Eveline" and "Evelien" are not simply spelling variants. In Dutch the former may be pronounced with four syllables, the latter can only have three. 203.220.172.150 (talk) 04:10, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the wiktionary link and for the explanation, that makes sense. DanCherek (talk) 05:10, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

It's fairly common in Dutch names, in particular in women's names deriving from French. In French, the final e in Eveline isn't pronounced, but Dutch spelling/pronunciation rules require it's pronounced as a schwa. Sometimes this spelling pronunciation with a schwa is used, but in other cases the schwa is dropped, returning to something closer to the original French pronunciation. This can be reflected in spelling by dropping the final e, which may require additional spelling changes, as the last consonant gets transferred to the coda of the preceding syllable. A double consonant before the final e, written to keep the syllable before closed, must be singled (Marianne turns into Marian) and if the preceding syllable was open, its vowel may have to be doubled to keep vowel quality the same. I isn't exactly doubled, but gets an e appended. There are also cases of a final a that's dropped. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:37, 1 May 2021 (UTC)