Talk:Dean L. May

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Name change

So.........then why is it that everytime I turn around, someone moves my little articles to a new title with the middle name spelled out? Oh, well...........WBardwin (talk) 02:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding comes from the Manual of Style for biographies: "the article title should generally be the name by which the subject is most commonly known". For example, Orson Scott Card includes all three names while John Bytheway includes only the first and last name. Eugene England's article does not have his first name (George) in the title because he was not referred to that way, and Gordon B. Hinckley includes just the middle initial, as was always common with him.

Middle names should only be added to your titles if that is the most commonly recognized name for that person (such as Joseph Fielding Smith, George Albert Smith, Lavina Fielding Anderson, etc). If it should be otherwise, I recommend raising the issue on the talk page (as was done here). Determining what is "most commonly known" can be subjective. As for my reasoning, I had only ever seen May referred to as "Dean L. May" or "Dean May" (as in these publications[1][2][3] and mentions [4][5][6][7][8]). Google finds 132,000 hits for "Dean L. May" and only 109 for "Dean Lowe May". ——Rich jj (talk) 19:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That may be so, and I'd prefer the initial ... but many of the modest biographies I've started have ended up being moved to pages with the middle names spelled completely out! I suppose three names would avoid confusion on common surnames, but the lack of consistency is a little annoying. Best wishes. WBardwin (talk) 22:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can't help but sympathize with you. One of my articles is "James B. Allen (historian)", which I think is the most correct name because professionally he is always known as "James B. Allen" (informally he is "Jim Allen"). Others are known by this name, especially the U.S. senator, but in my view that doesn't warrant changing "James B. Allen (historian)" to "James Brown Allen".

The article title for Salt Lake City mayor Ralph Becker bugs me a little, since it was moved to "Ralph Elihu Becker, Jr." from "Ralph Becker (Utah)". It looks like both the father and son were known as "Ralph Becker", so I don't see the reason for including the middle name. When I first saw this change I didn't even identify the name with the man. In fact, I think I'll go over there and start this discussion. ——Rich jj (talk) 15:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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