Category talk:Willem Jacobsz. Delff

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I prefer Jacobszoon over Jacobsz. since the second is a shortform of the first an requires a dot. that is 1) confusing 2) often forgotten -- A1000 (talk) 17:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know the -sz. confuses (some) English speaking people, but in the Dutch language the patronym is in most cases abbreviated. Also Willem Jacobsz. Delff is the preferred name of the Netherlands Institute for Art History (see and the Rijksmuseum (see Vincent Steenberg (talk) 20:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I vote for neither of the above, but propose a compromise: Willem Jacobsz Delff; This form is the one most often used in publications. I agree that the dot is very confusing and I am strongly against using dots in names. However, I also feel that the entire -zoon suffix for the patronym is too much. Shortening that to just z seems to be the common usage on Commons, as well in several wikis (de, en, fr). Jane023 (talk) 15:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello Jane, I would call that an 'English' solution. According to this proposal you are right, since it says that titles of galleries of persons should be in the native language and titles of categories in English. So for galleries it's Jeanne d'Arc instead of Joan of Arc. However, when I looked up the category Category:Joan of Arc it leads to an American rock band and not the saint. The category for Jeanne d'Arc was (not much to my surprise) Category:Jeanne d'Arc. In other words: apparently when a person's name differs in the native language both gallery and category are in that person's native language. I can only agree with that. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 09:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
I think it's good to have a guideline for the use of Dutch (and Flemish) patronyms. I propose the following:
  1. Avoid them as much as possible. There's only one Rembrandt van Rijn, so you don't have to say "Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn".
  2. Abbreviate them to -sz. for men and -sdr. for women, unless your source says otherwise. For example southern-Netherlandish patronyms often end with -ssen or -soen (in those cases they don't end with a dot).
Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 19:19, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Sorry Vincent, I lost this page entirely and just refound it now! I agree entirely that Commons is a mismash right now, with several categories being -szoon, -sz. and -sz without the dot. I looked around a bit and feel with you that on Commons one should stick to the proper spelling of the country that the person in the category is from, but indeed, sometimes the person's name gets mispelled in some history books and that name gets to stick. So, I'm with you on this one. In the EN wiki he'll be -sz with no dot, and here -sz. with dot. And thanks for proposing a guideline! I'll try to remember this when I make categories on Commons. Jane023 (talk) 07:05, 22 September 2009 (UTC)