Category talk:English surnames

Slippery road
I dare say this discussion has been had somewhere and, if so, please could you let us know where to find it?

Now, one can of course argue that Wiktionary has gone hugely down the road of including every English surname, & to undo that effort may be wrong. But I do wonder how sensible it is to flesh out Wiktionary with surnames? After all, Wikipedia does this, & arguably better, with links to notable people with said name.

And as Wiktionary has words from all other languages, aren't we then inviting people from all languages to add their own names here? How large would Wiktionary thus become, and how usefully? Wouldn't it cause a mountain of 'words' to appear in a dropdown, obscuring more normal words?

I'd love to read or hear others' thoughts. Thanks, Trafford09 (talk) 12:04, 31 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Well, they are words, and we can usefully include pronunciations, audio, and etymologies, which Wikipedia might not (and we can link to Wikipedia for articles on individuals). One "annoyance" is the problem of identifying the language of a surname: if one Jean Duval moves from, say, France to the US, does their surname become English? Equinox ◑ 23:19, 31 May 2019 (UTC)