Talk:W. J. M. Rankine

Title of the page

The title of this page is currently “William John Macquorn Rankine”. Using four names instead of two conflicts with Wikipedia’s naming conventions for people at WP:NCP and WP:COMMONNAME. There is no obvious problem with articles about multiple people named William Rankine so I propose the title of the article should be changed to “William Rankine” in accordance with WP:NCP and WP:COMMONNAME. There is an existing redirect to “William Rankine”, and after the change I am proposing, the title “William John Macquorn Rankine” will remain as a redirect. Dolphin (t) 22:51, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Ten days have passed since my previous posting but there has been no response, either in favour or against my proposal. I have examined the question of Rankine’s most commonly used first name and it seems it was Macquorn, not William or John. The infobox in the article contains an image of his signature – “W.J. Macquorn Rankine”. Also his biography at the current website “Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men” is titled “J. Macquorn Rankine” – see J. Macquorn Rankine.

I am now intending to reduce the title of the article to Macquorn Rankine in order to match the guidance at WP:NCP and WP:COMMONNAME. Dolphin (t) 21:37, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I moved the page from "William John Macquorn Rankine" to "Macquorn Rankine". Dolphin (t) 04:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

look, there is no conceivable reason to move the page to the third given name, unless it can be shown that this was the given name which he preferred at least during a part of his lifetime. It's going to have to be William Rankine, or if this is ambiguous, either William Rankine (physicist) or William John Macquorn Rankine, whichever is preferable under WP:NAME. --dab (𒁳) 08:58, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

ok, I did some (superficial) research on this. It isn't immediately clear which should be the "most common name" under WP:NAME. I used the google book searches

"macquorn rankine" -"john macquorn"
"william rankine"

google books no longer gives a reliable estimate on the number of hits, but paging through the result, it appears that these two searches both give of the order of 200 hits in printed publications. It appears that "William Rankine" is the most frequently used short name, and "Macquorn Rankine" is used some time, but the 200 results mentioned also include instances of "W. J. Rankine" and "William J. Macquorn Rankine". Some publications have hyphenated "Macquorn-Rankine", this is either a mistake, or else Macquorn isn't really a third given name but some sort of clan name?

It appears that Rankine, when not using the full "William John Macquorn Rankine", is most often referred to as either "W. J. Rankine", or "W. J. Macquorn Rankine", or "William Rankine", followed by "William J. Macquorn Rankine" and "Macquorn Rankine"/"Macquorn-Rankine". The "Life" section talks about young "William", so if the given name in the article title is changed from William to Macquorn, I suggest this would also need to be adjusted. --dab (𒁳) 09:09, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

actually, it turns out that "William John Macquorn Rankine" gets more hits on google books than any other combination, about 300 hits. So while it is not usually best practice to use the full string of given names, in this particular case, "William John Macquorn Rankine" is a viable candidate as WP:UCN simply because it is used more frequently than any other single alternative. --dab (𒁳) 09:13, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

I have tried to find information on the given name (?) Macquorn and I came up empty. It seems that (a) nobody other than Rankine himself has the given name Macquorn, (b) Rankine's name is also spelled "McQuorn" with some frequency, and (c) McQuorn does come up as an Irish surname. More research is needed on this, especially if he was given this name at baptism, presumably out of some eccentricity of his father, or if he adopted it at some point for some sort of genealogical reason (as he also changed the spelling Rankin to Rankine this may be a possibility). --dab (𒁳) 09:23, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

As you can see, I did some work on this topic last year. First, I raised the matter for discussion on this Talk page. I gave it 10 days for others to participate with their thoughts. I then moved the page based on my research. In contrast, you initiated a discussion and moved the page to a new title, all on 15 July.

I don’t recall all the results of my research but I can immediately make one important comment: the article has an Infobox, and it contains a photograph of Rankine’s signature. He signed himself W J Macquorn Rankine. Dolphin (t) 12:21, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

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William Rankine (5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and Lord Kelvin, to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on its First Law. He developed the Rankine scale, a Fahrenheit-based equivalent to the Celsius-based Kelvin scale of temperature. This undated photograph of Rankine was taken by Thomas Annan.

Photograph credit: Thomas Annan; restored by Adam Cuerden

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Requested move 5 July 2025

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. Consensus is to move to W. J. M. Rankine. (closed by non-admin page mover) CoconutOctopus talk 13:03, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

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William Rankine → William John Macquorn RankineWilliam John Macquorn Rankine – There was movement in 2020 from "William John Macquorn Rankine" to "Macquorn Rankine" and in 2021 to "William Rankine". As per the 2020–1 discussion neither Dolphin51 nor Dbachmann is sure which is WP:COMMONNAME and I believe that (a) the full form is at least as common in published mentions (OpenLibrary texts "rankine 1820 1872") (b) it is safer to use the full name than to imply that either "William" or "Macquorn" is what he is usually referred to in recent works, when it seems no wikipedian has yet supplied strong evidence for either (not to mention "W. J. M. Rankine", "W. J. Macquorn Rankine", "William J. M. Rankine", etc.). jnestorius^(talk) 12:28, 5 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 11:37, 13 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 11:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Prior to 21 June, 2023 the Infobox contained an image of Rankine’s signature. Unfortunately it is no longer present as the result of the June 2023 revision.

Rankine signed his name “W.J. Macquorn Rankine”.

It isn’t true that we don’t have evidence for his preference on matter of a first name - we have his signature. Dolphin (t) 13:36, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Personal preference has more weight for BLPs, where it is a matter of courtesy. His signature is strong evidence of how he signed his name, but weaker evidence of what he liked to be called in other contexts, still less of how recent writers refer to him, which is most relevant. Other sources of evidence would be the title pages of his books, entries in biographical dictionaries and on websites of learned societies and academic institutions. I think all three of us have searched around and seen a bit of everything. Ideally there might exist a reliable source commenting on this variety and reaching a conclusion we could cite, but failing that any effort by us to make a systematic count is likely to violate WP:OR unless a clear leader emerges. jnestorius^(talk) 15:24, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose as proposed. Pretty much nobody commonly uses or ever used their full three given names as a WP:COMMONNAME. No objection to W. J. Macquorn Rankine if that really was his common name. It was quite common in his day to use a mixture of initials and names in this way. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:00, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

  it's not the person's own use that is relevant; it's the use in modern sources. jnestorius^(talk) 12:05, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

  No, it's the use in all sources. Encyclopaedia entries, death notices, etc, don't really count, however, as they do commonly use full names for obvious reasons (just as we do in the first line). For the article title, we use the name that was actually commonly used to refer to the individual. And that does include their own preference, as someone's own preference is most often the common name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:40, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Scotland, WikiProject Civil engineering, WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/BPH, WikiProject Biography/Science and academia, WikiProject Physics, and WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Fluid dynamics have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 11:36, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. When I searched Google Scholar for the phrase "Rankine was" in an attempt to find recent scholarship about Rankine, three of the top five hits had titles with the form "W. J. M. Rankine" . Of the other two, one just used "Rankine" and one was about a different Rankine. I conclude that if there is a WP:COMMONNAME it is most likely W. J. M. Rankine and is definitely not William John Macquorn Rankine. I would be more favorably inclined towards a move to W. J. M. Rankine. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:07, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

  I would not object to W. J. M. Rankine; it's better than the current title at least jnestorius^(talk) 20:49, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

  Also no objection. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:41, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support W. J. M. Rankine per above.--Ortizesp (talk) 14:12, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Relisting comment: There has been some discussion of the page being moved to W. J. M. Rankine. Relisting to get clearer consensus. Pinging @Dolphin51 and @Necrothesp TarnishedPath^talk 11:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Pinging Necrothesp as I failed above. TarnishedPath^talk 11:56, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support changing to W. J. M. Rankine reading through the discussion above, I think this makes sense. Coldupnorth (talk) 21:43, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Biography/Science and academia, WikiProject Civil engineering, WikiProject Physics, WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Fluid dynamics, WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/BPH, and WikiProject Scotland have been notified of this discussion. Векочел (talk) 07:34, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support changing to W. J. M. Rankine. According to an Ngram, the most common name forms in the 19th century were W. J. Macquorn Rankine and W. J. M. Rankine, and possibly Macquorn Rankine (I am having some trouble subtracting "W. J. Macquorn Rankine" from "Macquorn Rankine"). The name William Rankine is historically by far the least common and is also polluted by namesakes (there are many hits before W.J.M. was born and during the WWII). In recent years (Ngram), "William", "William John Macquorn" and "W. J. M." are the most common forms. "W. J. M." is the name form that is the most concise, and common both historically and in recent years. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 08:09, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
• Obseration (informal support for W. J. M. Rankine): Although this argument is possibly too informal to be given much weight in the context of WP:COMMONNAME, having the first names in full counteracts recognizability of the name for the average reader (through what was named after him, such as the Rankine scale), making this at least synergistic with recognizability through concision. —Quondum 13:22, 25 July 2025 (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.