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Hernán Cortés and etymology of California

I don't disagree that the category should be removed, but your edit comment is incorrect and is likely to generate controversy. The etymology (not entomology) of California refers to where the name came from, which happened during Cortés' expedition to what is now Baja California. The Cortés article doesn't elucidate any further than the expedition, so doesn't bring any light on the subject. Regards, Tarl N. (discuss) 03:28, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

  • Categories are meant to cover things about the article that are defining to the subject. This is not a defining thing about the article on Cortes. Categorization guidelines say that biographical articles should be in categories designed for biographical articles, not in other categories that mixed biographical and non-biographical articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:33, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Rebel and Revolutionary categories

I am not convinced the line between a rebel and a revolutionary is clear enough for these 2 category schemes to be easily discernable who goes in which. I think we should make Category:French rebels and revolutionaries, Cateogry:Mexican rebels and revolutionaries and merge the two existing categories into the joint category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:41, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Habsburg Netherlands

We currently have Category:People from the Burgundian Netherlands and Category:People from the Spanish Netherlands. The first covers people through 1482. The second covers people from 1556 to slightly after 1700. It is not clear we have a good Category for people in the period from 1482-1556. It is also not entirely clear that 1556 is a major turning point. In 1482 Maximillian a Habsburg comes to rule the area by inheriting it from his father-in-law. His son eventually gets Spain as well. Their paternal territories are the title Holy Roman Emperor (which covers the low country areas as well as most of what is now Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, parts of Northern Italy, Slovenia, parts of Poland, and technically Switzerland, the Habsburg base area was Slovenia, Austria (not all modern Austria), some areas now in Italy and some areas now in Germany. In 1556 the title Holy Roman Emperor and the territories of the Habsburg base goes to Charles V/I brother who also rules Bohemia, and the non-Ottoman parts of Hungary. The areas in the Low Ciuntries, The Counry of Burgundy (French Comte), lands in Italy and Spain go to Philip II. I am thinking we could create a Peoplw from the Habsburg Netherlands for those 1482-1556, and just hatnote that this is distinct from People from the Spanish Netherlands and People from the Austrian Netherlands. Either that or make People from the Habsburg Netherlands the parent cat, directly place 1482-1556 people in it, and have post-1556 people as subcats. I think I will go with the last.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:31, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:French expatriates in Scotland

Why are you removing people from this category?! GiantSnowman 18:32, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Tension of categories

We have some principles in category formation that on the surface seem to be contradictory. I think there is a way to make them all work, but it takes some thought.

One one hand categories are supposed not be by shared name. They are supposed to be by shared trait. On the other events should be listed according to the standard historical way to refer to the place when they happened, or to where they happened then, not where the place is now. People were born in 1895 in Koniegsburg in the German Empure, not in Kalingrad in Russia. A person born there then is unless they were clearly born to non-subject exptriates, and diplomats are the clearest example of this, is almost certainly a German by nationality. The same applies to someone born in Strasbourg in 1895 (I am not sure that is even the right name of the city then.)

However when cities change names we generally categorize people by the current city. Even when they are clear reasons for the name change. People from Strasbourg covers people from various political entities. However someone who died in 1939 does not belong in a Pakistani writers category, even if he lived his entirely life in Lahore. We do not impose categories for countries, or sub-national units before these places existed.


Determining when a place started to exist it at times tricky. Siam is renamed Thailand, Ceylon to Sri Lanka, Burma to Myanmar, and there are others. We have one category across the divide. However other places are new places with the name change. The Czech Republic is not a modern extension of Bohemia. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are distinct from their successor states. Other examples exist. Some of these divides need some thought, but we need to avoid anachronistically imposing modern categories on past people. One example of this is Zimbabwe. It is a post-colonial state that does not have a pre-colonial equivalent. Ancient Zimbabwe died long before the coming of Imperial European powers, and was not a political state of any person in the 18th, 19th or 20th century.


We also have to keep in mind we categorize people primarily by the place they are nationals of, which can mean citizenship, but we allow for people who are subjects or long time residents who lack technical citizenship to be categorized. We are not categorizing by language, ethnicity or other things in these categories.

There are categories by ethnicity, but in general these should be different than by nationality categories. A child of Greek immigrants born and living their entire life in the US who was a writer was not a Greek writer, even if she wrote in Greek. There may be rare exceptions, but they are rare.

We also do not categorize by race. This is tricky because a lot of racial groups are also ethnic groups. We need to make sure we do not mass group people directly into race categories when their ethnic category should be more specific. Thus we have Black British writers, African-American writers, not a general Black writers. More to the point though, DNA does not matter, real biological parentage does not matter. If evidence shows someone had a parent of African descent, but the people of their time did not consider them to be part of this group, and we have no clear evidence the person considered himself part of the group, he does not go in the African-American category. However if the person self described with a term that has the same scope or similar scope as African-American they go in that category. We do not have a different category for say pre-1970 people because the prevailing terms for a group changed.

One place we need to do much better is with political sub-units. There were lots of districts created in England in 1974. People who have defining connections to these places since 1974 belong in the categories for people from them. People from before 1974 should be in the categories for before 1974. Either the specific village, town or city, or if that is not existing than in most cases the county, be it Shropshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, etc. This we are not doing very well at.

On the other hand we do fairly well at grouping alumni of a university by the university, regardless of what it was called. There are a few cases where past names represent such a different institution a different category is justified, but they are rare. I have attended multiple universities and colleges. Schoolcraft College used to be known as Northwest Wayne County Community College. Both are community colleges. There is no reason to divide alumni. I have to admit I am not sure community college is for all people even defining, but that is a different issue. I think some short term enrollees who transfer out without getting an associates may not be defined. I was in a short term teacher certification program there for people who already had a degree, which I did not end up completing. I am not convinced it is defining to me, but I am not notable so I am not sure anyone cares.

Wayne State University I have my bachelors degree from. It used to be called Wayne University. At that point it was a unit of the Detroit Public Schools. It changed its name when it became a state institution with a board elected by voters statewide. These are big changes for some purposes, but it is similar across the change that one cat for alumni, one for faculty etc. is justified. Eastern Michigan University where I worked on a masters degree in history used to be Michigan Normal College. It was just teacher training, and originally not even 4 years. Now it gives bachelors, MAs, and I think even PhDs. It is still not changed enough that different categories across the change make sense. However another place I studied at started out as an academy that was high school level, and later changed to a univeristy, at first mainly with only 4 years students, but it now has PhD programs enough to be an R1 research institution, a law school, a business school offering MBAs, and is in the process of creating a medical school that will give MDs. Even though there were college level students when it was an academy, at least in the later years of that phase, and the name change is not the only time where the level of students changed, that change is big enough to justify a different category for students before the change (at least the last I checked we had a different category for before that change). Moving from high school level to college level is one of the few changes of an educational institution that is large enough to justify splitting categories at that point.


Which country changes are enough to justify a split in a category is harder to parse. However clearly we do not need sperate categories for Siam and Thailand, and clearly we do need sperate categories for the Israel and Mandatory Palestine and also for the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. So not every change in name justifies a new category, but not every political entity that exists in the same or a similar space as a current one should be treated in any way as the same as the political entity that covers that space today. I hope this is enlightening even if it has few direct applications to possible issues that come up.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:03, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:Ethnic Hungarian people has been nominated for merging

Category:Ethnic Hungarian people has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. SMasonGarrison 02:59, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Nomination of Alan Cherry for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Alan Cherry is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alan Cherry until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Jbt89 (talk) 06:33, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Nomination of Marvin Perkins for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Marvin Perkins is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marvin Perkins until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Jbt89 (talk) 06:44, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Nomination of Marcus Martins for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Marcus Martins is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marcus Martins until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Jbt89 (talk) 14:59, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:English expatriates in the Habsburg Netherlands has been nominated for renaming

Category:English expatriates in the Habsburg Netherlands has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. SMasonGarrison 18:50, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:Scottish expatriates in the Republic of Venice has been nominated for merging

Category:Scottish expatriates in the Republic of Venice has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:31, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:States and territories established in 1193

A tag has been placed on Category:States and territories established in 1193 indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. ✗plicit 14:10, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:Emigrants from Portuguese India to British India has been nominated for splitting

Category:Emigrants from Portuguese India to British India has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. SMasonGarrison 12:50, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

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