Talk:Lady Mountbatten

Requested move 28 June 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. In regard to the common name argument for the move, the evidence presented did not indicate that a move is currently justified. Multiple responses in this RM called into question the recent move of Lord Mountbatten, which was used as part of the rationale for support arguments. (closed by non-admin page mover) ASUKITE 15:35, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

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Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma → Lady Mountbatten – Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONSISTENT. The Ngram shows "Lady Mountbatten" to be way more common than "Edwina Mountbatten". Google also points to the subject of this page as the primary result for the term "Lady Mountbatten". The move would also make the page consistent with the one on her husband, Lord Mountbatten, which was moved following this RM. This form of naming also has precedent (Lord Byron and Lady Byron, etc.). Keivan.f^Talk 04:54, 28 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Polyamorph (talk) 18:21, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage, Noticeboard for India-related topics, WikiProject England, and WikiProject Women's History have been notified of this discussion. Векочел (talk) 07:54, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, WP:COMMONNAME, and consistency with Lord Mountbatten. Векочел (talk) 07:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support per WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE. Ratnahastin (talk) 08:20, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I object to this approach entirely. We do not do this, nor should we, in case of most biographies. Ngrams favours "Picasso" over "Pablo Picasso". How many people know his first name anyway? Same with Descartes. Or Beethoven. Dickens. Mussolini. —Srnec (talk) 19:31, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

• All of this doesn't alter the fact it is still her common name. And this approach has been used for many pages incidentally. Precedent in RMs for Lord Byron (2010), Lady Gregory (2021), Lord Dunsany (2021), and Lord Kelvin (2023). Keivan.f^Talk 00:24, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose I agree with Smec. And FWIW "make the page consistent with the one on her husband" sounds like a classic piece of "everyday sexism" to me. I'm sure it's not intentional, but it is reducing a woman to an appendage of her husband. DuncanHill (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

• This is not the platform to right the wrongs of the society; we just go with what sources say. I'm sorry, but she drew her title from her husband and was evidently happy to use it. Even the current article name features the title that she acquired by marriage. Keivan.f^Talk 00:24, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

• It was your reasoning "make the page consistent with the one on her husband" that I was calling out as sexist. DuncanHill (talk) 00:32, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

• That was in terms of using common names for both. She could have been called an entirely different name and I would have stilled advocated for the page to be moved to that title. Keivan.f^Talk 02:38, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per Srnec and DuncanHill. This is completely unencyclopaedic. The article on her husband should not have been moved either. What sort of populist trash website is Wikipedia degenerating into? -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:25, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose, and like Necrothesp I would have opposed the move of her husband's article as well. They aren't even correct: they were "Lord Mountbatten of Burma" and "Lady Mountbatten of Burma", and the inclusion of the "of Burma" is not optional. Proteus (Talk) 12:32, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

  None of these arguments hold water and sound more like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Lord Dunsany was also "Baron of Dunsany" but the RM resulted in the page being moved to WP:COMMONNAME. The suggested title is overwhelmingly more common than "Lady Mountbatten of Burma" and "Countess Mountbatten of Burma". Keivan.f^Talk 16:00, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

  I wonder how many of those instances of "Lady Mountbatten" in the ngrams are second (or subsequent) mentions, like "Picasso" tout court (to use one of the examples above). I note that the only biographies cited in the article which are specifically about Lady Mountbatten are titled Edwina Mountbatten: A Life of Her Own and Edwina, Countess Mountbatten of Burma. Her ODNB article cites another book called Edwina Mountbatten: A Life in Pictures, and there was an Edwina Mountbatten Trust (mentioned here).

  Lord Dunsany and Lord Byron at least were writers, whose names appear that way on the covers of their books. This may be a flaw with WP:NCPEER's allowing exemptions from the usual naming convention "[w]hen one holder of a title is overwhelmingly the best known", when the only examples it gives were both writers: Tennyson and Byron. Ham II (talk) 20:24, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

  Good point. "Edwina Mountbatten" appears to be more common than "Lady Mountbatten of Burma" and "Countess Mountbatten of Burma" but not as common as "Lady Mountbatten" 1. I think what matters when it comes to determining common names is the frequency with which the name is used. Concision can be another point of argument for retitling this page. Keivan.f^Talk 00:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per @Necrothesp and @Proteus. Additionally, I too would've opposed the move of her husband's article as well. It is not encyclopaedic at all. PadFoot (talk) 08:08, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Relisting comment: While the oppose outnumber the support, the WP:COMMONNAME argument needs more consideration Polyamorph (talk) 18:21, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. If "Lady Mountbatten" were really the overwhelming WP:COMMONNAME, rather than a way of referring to her in brief (equivalent to how other people are referred to by their surnames alone), it would be in the titles of any of the books about her. Ham II (talk) 22:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

  Her husband is referred to as "Dickie Mountbatten" on some book covers. Would you advocate for a move based on what's written on book covers alone? I really don't think so. And "Lady Mountbatten" is a title, not a surname. In instances where these people are referred to by their surnames they are simply called "Mountbatten". Keivan.f^Talk 22:28, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

  I didn't say it was a surname. Uses of "Mountbatten" in brief are more likely to refer to her husband, not to her. "Lady Mountbatten" is the equivalent for her. Exceptions to the general naming conventions should be overwhelmingly preferred in usage other than repeat mentions for them to make the cut as article titles. Ham II (talk) 23:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

  "Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma" doesn't make the cut either. Realistically speaking, whether you consider book covers, book chapters, online sources, etc. she is mostly referred to as "Edwina Mountbatten" or "Lady Mountbatten", though the latter is more commonly used. That was the rationale which got her husband's article and the other ones that I listed moved in the first place. Sometimes we don't need a train of a title to identify a subject when there is an overwhelmingly common name in use, even if the so called name is not 'formal' or 'correct'. Keivan.f^Talk 01:04, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose To me it makes no more sense to move this article to Lady Mountbatten than it would be to move Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Lady Pamela Hicks, Penny Mountbatten, Lady Tatiana Mountbatten or Lady Iris Mountbatten. For those, like me, unfamiliar with how aristocratic titles work, disambiguation of these, including Louise Mountbatten as a "see also", would make far more sense. BTW, the move to Lord Mountbatten was a dreadful move. Thincat (talk) 10:25, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - The Ngram quoted by the proposer fails to support the commonname argument.

• The percentages in the ngram stand at 51% to 41%. 46% to 44%. Thanks to Keivan for the reminder, I had misquoted the figures. Corrected.
• Additionally, "Lady Mountbatten" can be used for multiple people, so not only is it possibly less common for Edwina, it is also in conflict with WP:PRECISE.

As this is not a significant majority, the COMMONNAME argument does not apply. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 06:27, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

• Additionally, "Lady Mountbatten" can be used for multiple people. None of whom are as widely known as this woman. Google also points to the subject of this page as the primary result for the term "Lady Mountbatten". That alone shows who the primary topic is.
• The percentages in the ngram stand at 51% to 41%. What Ngram are you looking at? And why should we even ignore the 10% difference? The suggested title is the common name per both Ngrams 1 and 2. And most results are from the 1940s to 1960s where only this woman was "Lady Mountbatten". Keivan.f^Talk 13:12, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for the links, upon rechecking I corrected my figures. My comment may have been on older figures for usage. THe actual difference is 2%, whcih enforces my point.
  I would recommend that you read WP:COMMONNAME carefully. For a name to be designated the "common" name, its usage has to be far greater than any other. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 05:36, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Glaring ommission

Can there be no reference to her sex life? The People article of 1932: "Society Shaken by Terrible Scandal" accusing "a woman highly connected and immensely rich" of an "association with a coloured man" and the court case that followed (in which the man in question was presumed to be Paul Robeson, but was in fact Leslie Hutchinson, leading to her successful libel action and the salvation of her reputation) is at least well documented. --Hugh7 (talk) 00:00, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

An interesting question, User:Hugh7. It appears that information about her sexuality and affair with Jawaharlal Nehru were removed in April 2024 by User:Ratnahastin, with the comment "falsification". Perhaps they can enlighten us how the six removed references (some very well known) were apparently falsified? Nfitz (talk) 09:19, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Frankly, the published accounts of her sex life is the only reason I looked up the article. I think they should be included. JKnox403 (talk) 15:23, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move 20 April 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. WP:SNOW move. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 02:58, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

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Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma → Lady Mountbatten – Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONSISTENT. The previous RM at this page failed because, and I quote, "Multiple responses in this RM called into question the recent move of Lord Mountbatten". In order to settle that matter we had another discussion at Lord Mountbatten's page to give the users opposing a chance to move it back to "Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma". Yet, that RM failed because the community consensus determined that whatever WP:COMMONNAME is that should be used as the article title, not a name that a subsection of users deems 'encyclopedic'. With regards to this page, Ngrams 1 and 2 both show "Lady Mountbatten" to be the common name, with most results being from 1940s till 1970s when this woman was the "Lady Mountbatten". Google also brings her name up first when a search is done for "Lady Mountbatten". Finally, this form of naming has precedent (Lord Byron and Lady Byron), and by this point we have had several RMs resulting in pages getting moved to the common names: Lord Byron (2010), Lady Gregory (2021), Lord Dunsany (2021), and Lord Kelvin (2023). Keivan.f^Talk 23:24, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Support per nom. ~2026-24452-08 (talk) 13:50, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Support. Another example of why I'm trying to workshop an update to this policy. Lady Mountbatten is a WP:COMMONNAME that is just as recognizable and precise as the current title, but they are not equals when it comes to naturalness, concision and consistency. Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma is not a natural thing for someone to search for due to Mountbatten appearing twice, while Lady Mountbatten is a perfectly natural thing to search for. For concision Lady Mountbatten is the obvious winner. For consistency the most relevant article is obviously Lord Mountbatten, her husband. It follows from styling the husband as Lord Mountbatten that the wife would be Lady Mountbatten, and having that match is to me the most important kind of consistency here. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 21:46, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

• Support per nom and Maltazarian. I read this as also being perfectly consistent with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) (WP:NCROY). Despite some disagreement in the Lord Mountbatten RM, consensus there was ultimately to stick with the shorter common name. Before jumping into detailed guidance including the section WP:NCPEER, WP:NCROY clarifies in the second paragraph:

  General policy on the naming of Wikipedia articles can be found at Wikipedia:Article titles. It is generally advisable to use the most common form of the name used in reliable sources in English ("common name" in the case of royalty and nobility may also include a person's title), but there are other things which should be considered: ease of use, precision, concision, and consistency among article titles; and a system constraint: we cannot use the same title for two different articles, and therefore tend to avoid ambiguous titles. For general guidance on finding titles for articles about people, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people).

  The guidance is explicit that these subject-specific naming conventions do not take precedence over the standard WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. The NCPEER guidance is meant to impart consistency when adhering to the 5 criteria produces ambiguity, conflicting results, or other challenges. Those problems do not arise here. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:37, 23 April 2026 (UTC)
• Support per both WP:CONCISE and WP:COMMONNAME. --PoliticalPoint (talk) 20:23, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.