Talk:Princess Helen of Serbia

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[edit] Names

I titled this article Helen of Serbia because it is the name usually used in the literature for her. However, I called her "Princess Jelena of Serbia" in the lead of the article because this was her birth name and what she was known as in her home country and in Russia as well, using the version Elena or Yelena. --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 02:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

We are not writing in Russian or in Serbian. If you feel this strongly, change the lead of Nicholas II's article to Nikolai II and watch it get revert. Stop trying to assert ownership over articles. Charles 02:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You appear to be doing much the same thing you've accused me of doing, with multiple articles. I continue to think she should be referred to as Jelena in the lead. --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 02:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You're not going to turn the tables on this one. You advocate forcing native language names on English Wikipedia like "Nikolai" which are not English and the like. Charles 02:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

No, what I advocated was that the lead of that article might say "Tsar Nikolai II, commonly known in English as Nicholas II" while leaving the title of the article as Nicholas II because he is so widely known as Nicholas II, same as with this article. I think articles should be titled according to the most widely known name, but the lead of an article might start with the closest phonetic spelling of the name they were called by in their country of origin, followed by the commonly known English version of the name right after. This person was most widely known as Helen in English-speaking countries up to the present day, but called some version of Jelena or Yelena or Elena in Russia and Serbia. In the case of her husband, he seems to be referred to as Ioann in all the recent literature , though his wife is still known as Helen. I'm not advocating Russian name titles for all the articles, just for the ones where the Russian names are used more often in the most recent bios and magazine articles. --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 02:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

This should stay at Princess Helen of Serbia, and I do agree with the bit at the end of the header paragraph that mentions her name in Serbian and Russian. Looks fine to me, otherwise. Morhange (talk) 02:44, 10 May 2008 (UTC)