Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Germany)

message: Before beginning a major revision of the Germany part of Wikipedia, we need a style guide. I have not been able to find any other summary in one place of naming rules for Germany. What I have offered here is a summary of modern practice by English speaking journalists and authors.
Tacitus 15:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've expanded the page, and hope I am not going too fast, but the points made below will surely be considered as we revise. The suggestion is that we clearly differentiate between historic and contemporary usages. Tacitus 12:05, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Introduction

message: A contributor to the Germany Project page argued for native German names for universities. That does not seem to represent mainstream opinion. In general, Italian, Chinese and other Wikipedians do not seem to force foreign-language university titles on readers. I've suggested here how the headwords for universities can be presented in a way acceptable to the Wikipedia community internationally. As far as I can see, the majority of Wikipedia university entries employ simple descriptive headwords of the form "University of Placename", which is to say, regardless of what it calls itself, it is "the university" that is situated at that place. Further adornment needs only be prefixed if a town has multiple universities. The "of" form has the advantage of allowing for such a prefix, e.g. Technical University of Wagga-Wagga. In text, Wikipedia articles also naturally take this form, "In 1951, he switched to the University of Heidelberg where he majored in ..." (Kohl biography). Tacitus 22:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would make life a lot easier. Agathoclea 23:19, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Universities

message: I suggest avoiding "GDR", "BRD" & "FRG", as I doubt that many English speakers outside the German speaking countries will know what they mean - and I suspect that not many more will know what "DDR" means. "East & West Germany", on the other hand, will be understood by almost all those who know what the cold war was.
--87.187.77.229 16:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For most articles in Wikipedia I would agree: the informal names are clear and well known. However "GDR" and "FRG" would be appropriate in articles about those pre-1990 political entities per se.Tacitus 19:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Abbreviations

message: In film titles, the foreign version often becomes the title of the article, so we are having a discussion in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films)#Capitalization in titles, trying to establish what is correct for each language. It is clear the German nouns are capitalized, but how do we we go about the non-noun words?  We would appreciate if you could drop us a line about it. Hoverfish Talk 20:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: English titles tend to capitalize most words. Exceptions could be things like of but it should be easy enaugh to find out how any particular film is spelt by going on imdb or similar. Agathoclea 18:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization in film titles 

message: Since there is now a concentrated effort at Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Cities to bring articles on municipalities/towns/cities  up to standard, perhaps it is time to come up with some sort of format for these articles. At the moment, the focus is on making sure that all articles actually exist. The next step is to add content. We probably don't need something as detailed as :de:Wikipedia:Formatvorlage Stadt but some clear guidelines would help. I've started up a page at here, giving what I believe to be the necessary minimum requirements for such articles. Any comments and help with setting this up would be appreciated. - 52 Pickup 15:28, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Format for German places 

message: Large parts of this should be considered for inclusion on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements). There is also a discussion on the possibility of a world-wide convention on its talk-page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Existing guidelines

message: is the rule that the German disambiguation system for town names is left out, and not done by brackets still enforced? Towns with brackets in their official German name, like Frankfurt (Oder) and Fürstenwalde (Spree), should be moved by that rule? There has been few support for this rule in Talk:Frankfurt (Oder), when the move has been discussed. Probably because the resulting creations like "Frankfurt an der Oder" could be original thought. I'm active in the German Wikipedia, and we have lots of rules that are not enforced and objected by the "reign of the minority". We even have articles move-protected by admins who don't want to have them at the discussed headword. I don't hope this will also be such a big problem here in en.wiki. --androl (talk) 20:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brackets in town names 

message: Hi there, I've asked there: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Germany/Cities#Naming convention ? about naming conventions of subdivisions. May somebody have a answer for the Hamburg-Foo question or it is the Foo problem ? Plz ;-) Sebastian scha. (talk) 19:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subdivisions ? 

message: * Adjectives: Convert to a noun, e.g. Lichtenhain Waterfall for Lichtenhainer Wasserfall, unless there is a recognised English adjective, e.g. Bavarian Forest for Bayerischer Wald
* Hyphens:  remove (in Groups B and C) unless they would be used in English, e.g. Theodor Heuss Bridge for Theodor-Heuss-Brücke, Main-Neckar Railway for Main-Neckar-Bahn
* Original German name: For Groups B and C, the German name should be a redirect, should be included in the introduction and should be interwiki-linked
A fair question is "Why are the Group B words treated differently from Group A?" In the case of valleys I think it is that they are named after another feature - the river. So you are unlikely to hear an English-speaker refer to the Rheintal or Maintal, he would say the "Rhine Valley" or "valley of the Main". In German it's the same, but the word for valley is added to the end of the proper name to form a compound noun. Perhaps the same doesn't apply to e.g. lakes and mountains because a) valley is always "-tal", whereas mountains can be e.g "-spitze", "-berg", "-kuppe", "-horn", and b) lakes and mountains aren't usually named after a separate geographical feature. Also, even in English, we tend to refer to mountains by their name only: "I've climbed Snowdon", "at the top of Everest"; but we always use e.g. "valley", "bridge" or "pass" to describe other features. What do others think and, just as importantly, what are the precedences in other reliable sources? --Bermicourt (talk) 17:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As nearly a month has passed with no comment, I propose to move the above guidelines shortly to a new section in this article (noting that the article is clearly tagged as a "proposed" guideline anyway). I see this as "work in progress" and hope others will help me to continue to add to it in due course. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK. FWIW, I didn't comment because I liked it, and had no objections. :) Amalthea 21:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wether it's Eckernförde Bay or Bay of Eckernförde for Eckernförder Bucht is I think a more inner-english matter to decide - I would have thought Bay of would be the more common expression, but that's just me. And you know my opinion about valleys :) - still think it should be Höllen Valley, not Hölle Valley (no river Hölle there, remember?). I appreciate the trouble you went to as much as the result you came up with. KapHorn (talk) 13:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I suggest we only use "Bay of XXX" if this is already the accepted English name (e.g. "Bay of Biscay") otherwise it sounds a bit prententious. That said general phrases like "the valley of the XXX", "the bay of XXX", "the bridge over the XXX" would seem fine (but note the capitalisation). I agree with you about "Höllen Valley" where there is no geographical feature after which it's named, but one of the Höllentäler has a village of Hölle in it. In the end there will always be exceptions and difficult ones which we need to thrash out on a case-by-case basis. The guidelines should hopefully cover the majority. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Shortly, this isn't the place. You're right. Sorry. Guess I'll just have to drop by Hölle and ask (when, if ever), then might get back to it. KapHorn (talk) 06:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hölle appears to be named after the village in the valley (or the other way around) I can just remember the red figure of the devil standing on the roadside the last time I drove through. Agathoclea (talk) 09:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Thank you! Amalthea 20:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional guidelines 

message: The guidance on disambiguating place names is generally helpful, but I have just come across one case which it doesn't seem to cover. Currently we have Hassel (Bergen) and Hassel, Lower Saxony. This is not clever because both are in Lower Saxony! The first is in the borough of Bergen, Lower Saxony, the second in the district of Nienburg, Lower Saxony. German Wiki lists them as Hassel (Bergen) and Hassel (Weser), but this approach is deprecated by the convention which suggests the second one at least should be something like Hassel am Weser, but there is no evidence that this is a name used in German. Since both are in Lower Saxony, possible options might be:
* Hassel (Bergen) and Hassel (Weser)
* Hassel, Bergen and Hassel, Weser
* Hassel, Bergen and Hassel, Nienburg
* Hassel, Bergen, Lower Saxony and Hassel, Nienburg, Lower Saxony - follows similar convention for US i.e. town, county, state
Views? --Bermicourt (talk) 19:59, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not actually sure that the convention laid out on the project page makes sense or really describes current practice. The US convention of naming the state (and county) is never used in Germany; I wouldn't like to impose it here as that means "unnatural" names for many cities. For independent entities, the disambiguator is (in German) essentially a part of the placename these days, and they are disambiguated in different ways that are standard to each city. For examples, see :de:Neustadt: there is :de:Neustadt/Westerwald, :de:Neustadt (Hessen), :de:Neustadt an der Weinstraße. I recall a move request where it was decided to move the city name to Frankfurt (Oder), which is the form of the name used by people in Frankfurt (Oder). My suggestion would be to follow German practice when this doesnt' conflict with other (non-German city) article titles. In case of conflict of that type , I would rather add ", Germany" or " (Germany)" than add the name of the state. Kusma (talk) 04:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

text: The German conventions of the parenthesis and the slash are barely used in English, and are recent innovations in German. We should be calling the city Frankfurt an der Oder, as German used to, and English still does. Similarly, here, Hassel an der Weser; like most rivers, except the Rhine and the Main, it is feminine.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:17, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

text: WP:NCGN acknowledges that different systems suit different countries. We do have an unusual problem in that we have to disambiguate towns which are uniquely named in Germany, but have towns named after them in Australia or Alberta or Kansas. German usage ignores this problem, but we can't. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Which existing official system? Berlin-Spandau is not what the community is called in English; Berlin/Spandau verges on the unintelligible; we should call it Spandau, and disambiguate (as we do). Similarly, I prefer Verden an der Aller to the short form. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:09, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There are "official" disambiguators for all independent communities. The type of disambiguation can vary from city to city, but is more natural than following American convention and adding the state after a comma. I don't really know what the best way to disambiguate boroughs or localities is, but Wedding (Berlin) is probably okay. Kusma (talk) 06:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wedding (Berlin) is fine, and probably unavoidable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation of place names 

message: I have created a number of articles on Germany's natural regions (see natural regions of Germany) which has entailed tracking down the English equivalents of these regional names where they exist in the sources. I have added a section which briefly summarises this in the convention. --Bermicourt (talk) 08:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural regions 

message: possibly foolishly, I have re-opened the C-or-K naming dispute at Talk:William VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel#Proposed move (3). If you have a strong opinion either way as to whether we should use the C form or the K form in the articles in question, please express it there. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 09:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is that the German language switched from C to K during the early 20th century (1920s?). So Cassel was the original name and is probably more correct for historic articles, whereas Kassel is the present-day name. Likewise Köln used to be the very odd-looking Cöln. I think same occurred with the letters th which became t i.e. Thal became Tal. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hesse-Cassel or Hesse-Kassel 

message: In general, terms for settlements may be translated as follows:
* Weiler as hamlet (place). In Bavaria, a settlement of less than 10 homes. Otherwise loosely defined.
* Dorf as village. A settlement of 10 homes or more (Bavaria) and under 2,000 (in Austria 5,000) inhabitants.
* Stadt as town if between 2,000 and 100,000 inhabitants or as city if over 100,000 (see Großstadt).
* Großstadt as a city, defined in Germany as a settlement of over 100,000 inhabitants.
It should be noted that Stadt is often used more widely than the guideline above, e.g. there are towns such as Arnis, Germany with under 2,000 inhabitants which were granted Stadt status (town privileges) in the distant past.
</blockquote>
Any comments? --Bermicourt (talk) 18:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: 'kay, is there any convention of a wikiproject:settlements (or whatever name)? then I thin we should just take these. I'm absolutely not in favor for many detailed rules or guidelines, if a 'higher' convention exists. Sebastian scha. (talk) 06:32, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If you mean where did I get the 'definitions' of size (e.g. 2,000 < German town < 100,000) - they come from the German Wiki articles on Stadt and Dorf. These point out that the definition of town varies from country to country (e.g. a town in France is over 2,000 people, in England over 10,000), so I've gone with the German definitions. Why does it matter? Two examples: Places over 100,000 are often referred to in German as a Stadt e.g. de:Hannover, but with a population of half a million we would invariably call it a city. But then where's the boundary? I'm suggesting it's 100,000 which is the German qualification for a Großstadt. Secondly, places are often referred to as Ortsteil, Ortschaft, or Gemeinde which can be translated as "community" or "municipality", but often the context suggests "village" or "town" e.g. Dohnsen is described as an Ortschaft and with a population of just 857 is clearly a village. Again where's the boundary though? I'm not suggesting we follow this slavishly, it's a guideline like the rest of the convention, but it helps me in translating articles on places. Does that make sense? --Bermicourt (talk) 20:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, maybe some historical aspects are important too, like Stadtrecht (town or city rights?). See Arnis, Germany, only now 300 people, a former Flecken (:de:Flecken (Ort)) but got city (town?) rights in 1934. But to differ generally the population seems to be okay. Sebastian scha. (talk) 21:59, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right - there are exceptions, hence the caveat above (which I've amended to include the link to town privileges). Incidentally I've just changed the "city" to "town" in the Arnis article: another example of the confusion in translating Stadt! --Bermicourt (talk) 06:52, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Settlements 

message: When I made a few minor additions to Johann Friedrich August Gottling, I noticed that the residence had been entered in the infobox as residence =  Germany and the nationality as nationality =  German, and that these entries seem to be incorrect for the dates 1753-1809. The same may well apply to the countries of birth and death, which have been entered as Germany. Are there any guidelines for the correct usage of flags, countries and nationalities in historical articles about Germany? Coyets (talk) 10:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:FLAGBIO applies regarding the birth/death places. Nationality is a tricky one going back in time. If needed particular care must be taken to get it right. Agathoclea (talk) 22:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the link to the Wikipedia guideline on the use of flags. In the article I mentioned, there are no flags for the countries of birth and death, and this seems to be correct. The Wikipedia guideline states that the historically correct flags should be used, but surely the flag in this infobox is not the national flag between 1753 and 1809. The article on the flag of Germany states, "With the formation of the Weimar Republic after World War I, the tricolour was adopted as the national flag of Germany". So surely any use of this flag for any residence or nationality before 1919 is incorrect. Do the guidelines on nationality and residence mean that in the article I mentioned, Germany should be replaced by Holy Roman Empire throughout, or should the country of birth be Holy Roman Empire, the countries of death and residence Saxe-Weimar and nationality German (without a flag)? Coyets (talk) 11:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

text: I would only put down a nationality that you have a reference for. As for flags: this edit suggests a dislike for those kind of flags. More so, that you actually link to the images and do not use  or . These templates have the advantage that it hides the flag from users who (like myself) choose not to see those flags, while making them available to the rest. See  for the various available variants. Agathoclea (talk) 22:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag, country of birth and nationality 

message: Forgive me if I have this wrong, but the example of a German nobleman's title given in the project page here seems to contradict its own convention which says we should translate their Christian names into English. Unless I am mistaken Ernst August, Prince of Hanover (b. 1954) should be Ernest Augustus, Prince of Hanover (b. 1954), shouldn't it? --Bermicourt (talk) 20:58, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see Christian names being mentioned - only titles. Agathoclea (talk) 18:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Durn, you are right. But there does seem to be a (perhaps unwritten) convention of using the English version of German (French, etc) Christian names for nobility, e.g. Henry the Lion (Heinrich), Henry IV of France (Henri), Charles the Fat (Karl), Conrad II (Konrad), Philip of Swabia (Philipp), Wenceslaus (Wenzel), Francis II (Franz), Albert II (Albrecht), Frederick the Fair (Friedrich) and so on. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: We translate when that is the most commonly used form in English, but not when it isn't.  Note that we don't have John Charles I of Spain, even though we do have Charles IV of Spain and John II of Castile. john k (talk) 13:45, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Titles of royalty and nobility 

message: I'd like to know wether there's a convention regarding resulting redundancies in translating names by adding a descrpitive term? Article in qst. is the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery, which currently is listed as "Cemetery Of The Invalids Cemetery" - that's kinda awkward. The issue sounds familiar, but I can't recall where I read it before. --G-41614 (talk) 14:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Berlin city translates it as "Invalids' Cemetery" as does ww2museums. Certainly the titles "Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery" and "Cemetery Of The Invalids Cemetery" (where does that appear?) are clumsy and tautologous. I have moved the article to Invalid's Cemetery. Interestingly, this would appear to add a "Group D" to our guide on translation of place names: i.e. compound nouns where both parts - the proper noun and the descriptor - can be sensibly translated into English. Unless anyone objects I will amend the convention accordingly in a few days time using this as an example. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thnx for beating me there - would've been the first time I'd have moved a page. I certainly did make myself not clear when I wrote above post - it was never listed anywhere as "Cemetery Of etc. etc.". That was just me interpreting the lemma for those who do not speak german. Sorry. On amending the convention - that I think is a good idea, basically. Except there may be a need to distinguish somehow between terms that need translation and those that don't. Or perhaps distinguish between those that need to be translated because they might not be generally known in english by their german names (like aforementioned Invalidenfriedhof) and those that might not. I'd have a hard time imagining someone searching on en:wiki for e. g. Lake Wann. But perhaps that's just me. Regards, --G-41614 (talk) 11:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Wannsee is in Group A - do not translate - although there are exceptions. Bermicourt (talk) 12:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops - thnx. --G-41614 (talk) 08:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundancies 

message: Anybody got a translation for that title? Should be explained at least, I think. Regards, --G-41614 (talk) 08:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: My Langenscheidt Muret-Sanders megadictionary calls a Baurat a 'planning department surveyor', so Oberbaurat could be a 'senior..." one. Dict.cc has Stadtbaurat as 'head of the municipal planning and building control office'. And de.wiki (see :de:Baubeamter) equates Stadtbaurat with Oberbaurat. But these appear to be modern translations; I think it also has a historic context. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:27, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thnx - think I'll try and use this to improve in Richard Ermisch. --G-41614 (talk) 15:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oberbaurat 

message: See Talk:Hesse-Kassel.  We should really agree on one spelling.  I moved the articles that were using "Hesse-Cassel" (and one that was using "Hessen-Kassel") so that all now use "Hesse-Kassel."  Then I proposed a move of all articles to "Hesse-Cassel".  If there is a consensus for it to be "Hesse-Cassel," so be it.  If there is a consensus for them to stay at "Hesse-Kassel," so be it.  But can we all agree to just use one form? john k (talk) 14:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hesse-Kassel vs. Hesse-Cassel (again) 

message: This page recommends and describes the German methods of disambiguation for two places in Germany with the same name. But suppose there is a placename which is ambiguous with something on which we have an article, but is not a place; for example, the village Iven, in Hither Pomerania, is ambiguous with a first name which arises either as a form of Evan or Ivan. 
For the particular case, it is possible to leave the first name at Iven (given name), since nobody is called just Iven; but there will be other cases, not so easily soluble. Do we want to disambiguate by the Bezirk, the Land, the region (here Pomerania, rather than Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), Germany, or (town)? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is that the normal Wiki convention in the case you describe would be to disambiguate by describing what it is i.e. (town) or (village) as opposed to, say, (surname) or (name). --Bermicourt (talk) 13:12, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation

message: There is an on-going discussion at Talk:East_Germany#Before_an_edit_war_starts concerning whether the article title should remain East Germany or be changed to "German Democratic Republic". - SummerPhD (talk) 18:04, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feedback requested 

message: What are the criteria for including a dab article in this category?  I was surprised to find it has been added to Talk:Luckenbach (disambiguation) as the article only includes one article link that is to do with Germany - all the others are US places/people/ships etc. Davidships (talk) 17:02, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: , I am not aware of any formal criteria for this, but I guess we should go with whatever appears to be most useful. The only point I see in having WikiProject banners on talk pages of disambiguation pages is the following: if a disambiguator is unsure what to do with certain links, they get a suggestion which projects they could ask about it. For that, it makes sense to be fairly liberal with the range of project tags on the talk page. But we can ping , who added the project tag, and ask  what  criteria are. —Kusma (t·c) 19:25, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It will be initeresting to learn 's perspective.  To be honest, I'm struggling to think of what kind of uncertaintly an editor would have with a simple dab page (which after all just grabs a short description from the article being linked). Perhaps it's the other way round - effectively creating a checklist for Project Germany members to police.  But let's see if there is more to this than meets my eye. Davidships (talk) 20:49, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

text: For  me it was quite simple. When I came across the disambiguation page, I noticed that it mentioned the place Luckenbach in Germany. Since there is a category for disambiguation page on WikiProject Germany I added it. That was the rationale behind it. If, however, you feel that the category banner is misplaced, I don't have a problem with you removing it. Ekki01 (talk) 21:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambig-Class Germany articles 

message: See this discussion about a consistent way to translate the administrative divisions Stadtbezirk, Stadtteil, Ortsteil and Ortschaft into English. Markussep Talk 06:50, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stadtbezirk, Stadtteil, Ortsteil, Ortschaft 

message: I note that we have Munich Airport (for Flughafen München) but we have München Hauptbahnhof (for Munich Central Station). Should the rail station be moved to the English name, or should the airport be moved to the German name? Which style is correct? Asking after a conversation with . - UtherSRG (talk) 16:55, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Airports, train stations...