Category talk:Hebrew-language surnames

Problems

This category seems to have problems, such as

1. I googled the phrase "Hebrew-language surnames". Apart from references back to wikipedia itself, there was only a single match, in a context which appeared to be anti-semitic. There was no scholarly or near-scholarly use of the phrase. This implies that the phrase is not an appropriate category name, since no references can support its use.
2. The article Hebraization of surnames is the sole article in this category where the attribution can perhaps be justified. This article is rather in a class by itself, however, so hardly warrants a whole category.
3. The surnames Aaron, Aarons and Aaronson are given in reliable sources as "Jewish", with the further qualification "Ashkenazic". The fact that the name "Aaron" is ultimately Hebrew is stated, but it is not given as an attribute of the surname. (Of course, Aaron in ancient Hebrew is solely a given name. Furthermore the endings -s and -son are Yiddish, not Hebrew at all.)
4. The name "Malone" is given as "Irish". The ultimate origin of its constituent parts is indeed given, but nothing there justifies categorising the name as "Hebrew".

SamuelTheGhost (talk) 21:08, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

1. You seem to be confused. Category names are never required to be "supported by references." Although article text should be supported by references, article titles follow policy and guidelines. Category names often correspond to the titles of their main articles, likewise following policy and guidelines.
2. If you disagree this would be a good category for Hebraization of surnames (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), that Talk page would probably be a better place to discuss.
3. If the -s and -son are Yiddish, then they should probably be in Category:Yiddish-language surnames, based on a well documented article Yiddish language.
4. There is another given reference for Malone. Since I've no copy of either book, it's hard to verify, or to discern the differences from your reference. But I'm guessing from your comment that your reference also has a mention of Hebrew language. The significance and differences between references should probably be discussed at that Talk, instead.

--William Allen Simpson (talk) 11:01, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Category names should use standard nomenclature, that is, nomenclature that appears in reliable surces, for two reasons:

1. This accords with the spirit, certainly, and the letter, arguably, of WP:RS and WP:NOR
2. If a source reference says "X is a Y", but the category is called "Z", then the reference is not supporting the categorisation wihout additional evidence that Y and Z are the same thing. If Y and Z are identical in meaning, we need to prove that and it's just clearer and simpler to use Y as the category name. If they have non-identical meanings, the reference may not really be supporting the categorisation at all.

It is wise, for similar reasons, for technical article titles to use standard nomenclature. In this case, however, since there are no article names of the form "X-language surnames", the allusion to article names is irrelevant.

Source are unanimous that Aaron, Aarons and Aaronson are Jewish surnames, and that's how they should be categorised. My reference above to their formation (mostly) in a Yiddish language environment was deliberately in brackets to indicate that this is not really the point.

It'll be a day or two before I can check the Harrison reference, but I'm sure he describes Malone as Irish. Here's another reference which certainly does so.

Your remark "I've no copy of either book" made me laugh. Your lack of familiarity with the relevant literature is rather obvious.

SamuelTheGhost (talk) 17:45, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The lack of a google usage of a term isn't indicative of anything to me. I suspect many categories we used aren't available on Google. As to the names, Harrison never uses the term "Yiddish" but instead uses Hebrew. Like I commented to you about MacNicol, it's probably similar to his use of "Gaelic" for Scottish Gaelic versus "Irish" for what's current thought of as Irish Gaelic. If you are arguing that Harrison is completely an unreliable source, then I'll strip all references to it and leave you with whatever sources you want to use (the other sources aren't available to me locally), but I simply see an older source that's a bit outdated about its terminology for language (it is from 1919). However, I generally do see that his theory notwithstanding for MacNicol and Malone is confirmed by later authors. Really, though, these discussions belong at each of hte article talk pages. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:50, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• If the phrase used to define a category shows no google hits, that is fairly convincing proof that it is not a phrase in common use. If a category has that name, that indicates strongly that it has been developed by WP:OR. Furthermore it creates a situation where it cannot be used as a citation to support a categorisation without further interpretation. Apart from the ones we are discussing, I challenge you to produce "many categories we used (which) aren't available on Google" as you put it, that is category names using words which never occur on the net.
• Yiddish and Hebrew are completely different languages, but I can't face trying to explain all that to you.
• I'm not arguing that Harrison is an unreliable source. Quite the reverse. I said "Harrison on its own is a dangerous source", meaning that the way he presents things could be misleading to someone who lacks other sources or a reasonable degree of backgound knowledge. You are illustrating that point precisely.
• There is no conflict between the four sources I quoted at User talk:Ricky81682#Hebrew-language surnames. I was pointing out that the form of words they use differs, which is relevant to their use in citations. In substance they are all saying exactly the same thing, or with only the most trivial variations. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 13:27, 2 August 2009 (UTC)