Talk:Jones (surname)

message: What, no TOM Jones ???
:Theres a link to Tom Jones (disambiguation) and Thomas Jones in the "See also" section. Seeing as how there are almost 30 people with that name and they already have their own disambiguation page, they're not listed here by occupation. dissolvetalk 15:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done Laetoli (talk) 23:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing! 

message: Merged two groups of fictional characters and placed them at the bottom of the list Laetoli (talk) 23:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fictional characters

message: I'm in the process of adding more Joneses but this is a very big task which will never be finished - we are too many Laetoli (talk) 23:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Then don't add them all but add representative ones that provide a geographic and historical view on the distribution and evolution of the surname.  Just having a longer list doesn't help improve the encyclopedia. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well just trying to add notable ones.Laetoli (talk) 01:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: More Joneses

message: I'm getting rid of the 'due to immigration' at the end of this sentence in the intro as it implies the causality of large numbers of Welsh people are called Jones due to the immigration of English people with the surname Jones.  While there may be some truth to it, it does ignore other factors such as the adoption of (Patronymic) surnames rather than the 'ap/ferch' tradition around the 18th century.  Let me know if there are any objections.  Rhys  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.124.16.28 (talk) 11:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ...and is now also commonly found in Wales due to immigration: causality implied? 

message: Isn't this article a bit of both ? Did it start life as a disambiguation ? Machete97 (talk) 18:49, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation or article ? 

message: This article is extremely UK-centric. If you are focusing on origins, that's understandible. But when you start talking about how widespread the name is today, surely the largest English-speaking country in the world ought to be included in the discussion. The name Jones is very common in the United States. In someplaces, it may be a marker for early pockets of Welsh settlement in the eastern U.S. (Though the name is not exclusively Welsh in origin, as noted correctly in the main article.) It's often a common name in population areas that were thought to have been settled by the Scotch-Irish, something that is less easy to explain based on the main article. In the U.S., the commonality of the name has given rise to the expression "keeping up with the Joneses," meaning trying to display as much material wealth as one's neighbors. The name is also very common among African Americans, reflecting a historic tie to Joneses who were slaveowners. Overall, an explanation of how the Joneses became so widespread in the U.S. would appear to by in order.
Ftjrwrites (talk) 19:12, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In the U.S., the commonality of the name has given rise to the expression "keeping up with the Joneses," - LOL - I think you'll find that we had the phrase on this side of the pond at least a century ago. It arose with the then-new middle classes and refers to them competing with each other (e.g., their neighbours) in material possessions which their new-found wealth allowed them to buy, and their unwillingness to be outdone by the other.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.59.209 (talk) 18:29, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Look across the pond 

message: I have reverted the latest attempt in the article to establish that Jones is Welsh in origin on the grounds of reliability of sources.  The Data Wales source does not exactly make the claim of Welsh origins, rather, it states, as previously in the article, that the Welsh use derives from Ieuan.  This agrees with Reaney and Wilson which must surely be taken as the more reliable source: it is a published book which meticulously lists its source documents.  Data Wales on the other hand appears to be a personal web site (eg "I think it safe to say...") and gives no sources.  There is also a matter of logic here; why on earth would the Welsh people take on an anglicized form of surname before they were forced to do so by English invaders?  It appears they chose the nearest English equivalent to the Welsh and Reaney and Wilson seem to establish that Jones existed in England before that happened.  If there is a case for Welsh origins, it needs better sourcing than offered so far. SpinningSpark 10:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole "origin" thing is a curse. I think American name books tend to use 'origin' to mean which countries American settlers came from. I think that's really the most important piece of information about a surname to many Americans. Obviously a large, maybe most, Americans with the surname are of Welsh descent, or claim to be. But this article is about the surname in general, not just the American one. The name is an English language name. It is first recorded in England. It was adopted by the Welsh people, who popularly used the Welsh language form of John. Does anyone actually dispute this? I don't think so. IMO the infobox sucks because the vague "origin" parts encourage these kind of fights on Wikipedia.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 11:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Many editors think infoboxes are "evil" per se for just this kind of generalisation. SpinningSpark 11:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Welsh origin