Wikidata

Wikidata:Property proposal/Patronym or matronym

< Wikidata:Property proposal

patronym or matronym edit

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Person

Descriptionthe part of a person's name that comes from the given name of a parent, in naming traditions that require it
Representspatronymic (Q110874), matronymic (Q1076664)
Data typeItem
Domainhuman (Q5)
Allowed valuesclass (P2308): anthroponym (Q10856962)
Example
Icelandic - names often have no family name, only patronym or matronym (type A)
Malay - names often have only given name and patronym, no family name (type A). Patronym is "grammatical particle + father's honorific + father's given name"
Arabic - can be type A or type B. Sometimes a patronym becomes a surname (but changes form from bin(t) to al) when a clan becomes famous. Patronym is "grammatical particle + father's given name"
Russian - generally with a family name (type B). Patronym is the genitive form of the father's given name, inflected for the child's gender.
Bulgarian - given name + patronym + family name all compulsory (type B). Same grammatical rule as Russian for forming a patronym.
Indian cultures - can be type A or type B. The patronym is directly copied from the father's name without modification.
  • Narendra Modi (Q1058) → Damodardas
    • (gu) નરેંદ્ર દામોદરદાસ મોદી → દામોદરદાસ
    • (hi) नरेन्द्र दामोदरदास मोदी → दामोदरदास
  • A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Q9513) → Jainulabdeen (Q46107622)
    • (ta) ஆவுல் பக்கிர் ஜைனுலாபுதீன் அப்துல் கலாம் → ஜைனுலாபுதீன்
    • (te) అవుల్ పకీర్ జైనులబ్ధీన్ అబ్దుల్ కలామ్ → జైనులబ్ధీన్
type A, used without a family name. People are always addressed by their given names. (e.g. Icelandic, Malay, some Arabic, some Indian)
  • See Icelandic above
type B, used in addition to given name and family name (e.g. Russian, some Arabic, some Indian)
  • See Russian above
Planned useenter values for Icelandic and Russian people (at least) in wikidata
See alsopatronym or matronym for this name (P2976)
Motivation

We already have patronym or matronym for this name (P2976) which is for linking given names to equivalent p/matronyms, but no property for linking humans to their patronym or matronym. If this proposal is approved, I propose that P2976 be renamed "patronym or matronym equivalent of name", or similar. Yair rand (talk) 23:27, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Vladimir Alexiev: Because they are different types of relationships. A name can have an equivalent name in another category, and a person can also simply have on of their names. The data needs to be structured. --Yair rand (talk) 21:57, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Yair rand: Why are they different types of relations? Both describe the p/matronym of something, be that a name or a person. A good practice in ontology design is to let props vary by meaning and range, but not by domain, to avoid combinatorial explosion. Eg schema.org follows this principle widely. --Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 05:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
People can be referred to by a patronym. Given names are not referred to by patronyms. Given names have equivalents in other forms of names. People do not have name equivalents. The only thing the two relationships have in common is that the targets share a type. I don't think that's really enough to share a property. --Yair rand (talk) 21:03, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion

  Wait till we have a description that tells people who don't know what a patronym or matronym is what the property is about. ChristianKl (✉) 19:11, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  •   Comment maybe this would work better with two separate properties, one for Icelandic, another one for Russian. (or at least for names that work like each of these).
    --- Jura 19:13, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jura1: There are dozens of nations and cultures that use or have used patronyms and/or matronyms. I don't think it would be helpful to make separate properties for each of these... --Yair rand (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, thus only two. Based on a comment on Project Chat, maybe the Russian one isn't even needed.
    --- Jura 11:36, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jura1: I don't quite understand what you're suggesting. Would patronyms in other languages be omitted from the data? Or use a patronym property? Or use a different property? I don't agree with using family name (P734) for patronyms which are not family names. They're not at all similar in use. --Yair rand (talk) 22:32, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment If I understand it, this property will have a similar relationship to people as do given name (P735) and family name (P734)? Essentially it is describing a part of a person's name that is derived from the given name of a parent. So it could be created from existing wikidata entries via father (P22) (or mother (P25)), given name (P735) on that person, and patronym or matronym for this name (P2976) for that name, if those all exist? But not everybody has such a name (it's a cultural thing). So I think this property would be useful to have. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:17, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Correct, this property will have a similar relationship to people as P735 and P734, describing that part of a person's name. The data from P22/P25 -> P735 -> P2976 might be usable for building a constraint for this property, but it could not be used to generate the data automatically, as not all cultures have patronyms, and those that do use many very different types (eg "[Name]ovitch", "bar-[Name]", "ibn [Name]", and the feminine forms "[Name]evna", "bat-[Name]", "bint Name", along with variants of each in each cultural group, as well as cultures that use matronyms, etc...). --Yair rand (talk) 19:03, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Support. I've edited the description. Deryck Chan (talk) 21:40, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    •   Weak support. Having participated in the discussion here, I'm still convinced it's useful to have a trans-cultural "patronym" property of some sort, but I'm not sure we can agree on what datatype it should be and how we should use it. Deryck Chan (talk) 23:23, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Support I also marked as ready, and linked the examples to actual wikidata items. However - @Yair rand: - those wikidata items I linked to are listed as "family name" and "given name", respectively, was the intention to use those existing items, or to create new items specifically for patronymics? ArthurPSmith (talk) 16:50, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • On most Wikipedia editions, a given name and a surname will share the same page (and hence become the same Wikidata item) until the list of people with that name becomes long enough that a split is appropriate. It's possible to add a statement to the existing items to say that they're also used as patronyms without creating extra items. Deryck Chan (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose I don't think A and B should be combined.
    --- Jura 17:04, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Jura1: A and B are... A=patronym and B=matronym? Deryck Chan (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Jura1: I don't think the arbitrary separation between A and B can cross cultures. The very idea of "used instead of a family name" in your description of A implies an attempt to shove Icelandic names into the more prevalent "given name + surname" convention, which I think is unhelpful. Consider Indian family names which contains a mix of patronymic conventions, patronymic + family name conventions, and family name only conventions, often within the same language. Consider also Arabic names where most people use a patronymic and some people also have a family name. Then consider Malaysian name which is... you guessed it, a mixture between Arabic (patronymic mandatory, family name optional), Indian (it's complicated), and Chinese and English (family name mandatory, no patronymic) naming conventions; it is for this very reason that Malaysian and Singaporean passports have a single "name" field without separating "surname" and "given name". The only meaning of the A/B separation that can cross cultures is that people in A don't have an inherited family name while people in B also have an inherited family name, which should be handled by the presence or absence of a family name (P734) statement on the same item, not by splitting this property into two. Deryck Chan (talk) 15:18, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      •   Comment The purpose of this property is to provide information in a structured way. Clearly, names in type A are structured differently than names in type B.
        If you think it should work for names of other cultures, maybe you should add corresponding samples. Currently, no use is illustrated beyond Icelandic and Russian names. It's not even clear if the proposer actually intends to use the property.
        --- Jura 15:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • This is false: adding this property allows all names to be structured similarly, as a combination of one or more "given names", zero or more "matronym or patronyms" and zero or more "family names". Jura's claim here would require us to regard hispanic names that include two family names, or any name with multiple given name components etc etc as yet another independently structured sort of name. This is wrong. The proposal here would finally allow all these types of names to be correctly represented. We're still missing the piece for "generational designations" like Jr., etc. though... ArthurPSmith (talk) 18:42, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
          • Please don't delete type A and type B from the samples. This makes the discussion incomprehensive and unstructured. Actually we do differentiate elements that are entirely different, e.g. titles, Roman names or Spanish second names. If we just want a property for random name components, we could just create that.
            --- Jura 20:42, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      •   Comment @Deryck Chan: Thanks for adding more samples. It would be good if these include names in native language labels, corresponding patronyms, given names and family names if applicable (see Russian/Icelandic samples). Currently they are somewhat incomplete. It's not entirely clear if these sample could fit even into this proposal. As the plan is for Russian and Icelandic only, maybe it's not generally considered suitable.
        --- Jura 20:42, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • Deryck Chan and others have been enormously patient with you here Jura, I think you need to re-read what he stated above starting "I don't think the arbitrary separation between A and B can cross cultures". Your responses indicate a complete lack of understanding of his point there. The proposal was never intended to be exclusively for Russian and Icelandic names, it allows linking a person to the part of that person's name that derives from the given name(s) of a parent. Your type A/B distinction is a complete red herring. ArthurPSmith (talk) 14:38, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
            • The question is if there are actually names that have different compoments in type A and type B or not. I don't see what's arbitrary about it. Some names have one format, others a different one. I haven't made it up. Maybe you could contribute some samples yourself instead of telling others others what you think is false or using your patience. If you don't have time to find valid samples, I don't see what you actually plan to do with this property. Maybe you are merely using the patience of contributors in the field.
              --- Jura 15:08, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have more than enough examples. I continue to fail to see any benefit from distinguishing "type A" and "type B". What consequence would this distinction have in any potential application? The only difference between A and B is an independent piece of data - does item X have a family name, or not? Therefore that is the only piece of data any application using this information would need to look at - whether X has a family name or not. Calling the patronym/matronym something different in the two cases simply does not help in any conceivable way. Names are intrinsically complex - see Falsehoods programmers believe about names - so the best we can do for structuring them is to tag the parts that do have some consistent logic, as this proposal attempts to do. There are plenty of people with only a given name - mononym (Q2985549), for example U Thant (Q1264) so assuming there must always be some part of the name that serves as the "family name" is untrue. ArthurPSmith (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Support To be used for Scandinavian Peoples.Pmt (talk) 14:43, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    •   Comment limiting it to Scandinavian names (of type A) could be a good start. Once it works out, we can move to others. The samples for other seem incomplete.
      --- Jura 17:50, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Jura1: Can you explain how the other samples are incomplete? Deryck Chan (talk) 14:04, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • I can't find the text you added on Q46107622. It's not even clear if it's a given name or a patronymic form as P31 is missing. I haven't checked if you completed the others since. Q9513 doesn't seem to include the missing information mentioned before.
          --- Jura 14:44, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
          • @Jura1, ArthurPSmith: An Indian patronymic is simply the father's given name without modification. I've added English labels to Jainulabdeen (Q46107622), linked to it from another person for whom the exact same name is their given name (same language but no relation to Abdul Kalam) and Arthur added further statements. If I understand correctly, the instance of (P31)patronymic (Q110874) is only used for names that are only used as a patronymic (which makes sense for Slavic and Icelandic patronymics because they're grammatically different from the given name form) so it would make more sense in these cases to have an item of class given name (Q202444) as the object of this "patronym" property. Deryck Chan (talk) 11:20, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Yair rand, Vladimir Alexiev, ChristianKl, Jura1, ArthurPSmith:@Deryck Chan, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), Pmt:   Done --Micru (talk) 09:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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