Talk:Ivory Coast: Difference between revisions

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Name

Do we really need subheaders for a paragraph on english media usage and another subheader for a paragraph on official usage? The whole section is about the size of a decent subsection, dividing it up is a crude and unnecessary expansion of the TOC. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:29, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree and have removed the headers. One-graph headers are unncessary. 06:42, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I would like to know why the article is called Côte d'Ivoire and not Ivory Coast. If we are calling it Côte d'Ivoire then why isn't the article on Spain called España or the article on Germany called Deutschland? We're not giving them special treatment so why is Ivory Coast differant? Furthermore the article on East Timor isn't called Timor-Leste however the Timor-Leste is mentioned in the article. I propose that the name of the article is changed to Ivory Coast but, like East Timor, the name Côte d'Ivoire be used in the article. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 10:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

At the very top of the page there's a link to the dozens of past discussions on the same question (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, the conclusion, after much discussion of the this issue in the past, seems to be that both Côte d'Ivoire and Ivory Coast are commonly used in English-language sources. So for instance the BBC will most often refer to the country as Ivory Coast, while The Economist will most often refer to it as Côte d'Ivoire. We have not been able to establish in any decisive way which of the names is most commonly used by reliable English-language sources. We are therefore staying with the current name, at least until decisive evidence can be shown that it is not the most commonly used name, as changing the name of this article would mean having to change the name of many other article to keep internal consistency within Wikipedia.TheFreeloader (talk) 11:26, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

How can you not know which is used more in English? Ivory Coast, the English name for the country, or Côte d'Ivoire, the French name for it. To me it seems silly but if it's not changing, it's not changing. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 14:08, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

"Ivory Coast" is an unofficial English translation of the country name. Just like if you chose to call me "Brett" because in your language it's a translation of "Brad", it does not make it my name (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 14:23, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Then you're right back at the "Spain should be España" part of the argument. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.226.200.151 (talk) 21:01, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

"Ivory Coast"?

What's that? [1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:28, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

And now, let's start another loop... Ericd (talk) 21:41, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not, but I noted that USAToday was consistent in their usage of "Ivory Coast". This "Cote d'Ivoire" stuff is pretentious nonsense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:10, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much every major news source uses "Ivory Coast". See BBC or New York Times. Kauffner (talk) 12:22, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be one of those cases where the rules about reliable sourcing get overridden by some inexplicable emotional thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:40, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

There is an open RM at Talk:East_Timor#Requested_move where the same official vs. news service name issue is being debated. But apparently a Portuguese name can't compete with a French name when it comes to getting support from Wiki editors. Kauffner (talk) 23:13, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeh, looks like the same argument over again. Apparently "reliable sources" don't matter anymore. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:47, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

The Francophiles have been active here as well, using the same partisan-admin-closes-multiple-times tactic. Getting back to Ivory Coast, this Ngram makes it clear that "Ivory Coast" is far more common than "Cote d'Ivoire" on Google Books. Virtually no English-language reader is typing in "Cote D'Ivoire" as a search term, as you can see here. Kauffner (talk) 05:36, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I see Kauffner got tired of fighting over removing the capitalization of wine region names (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:21, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

And I see that your reading skills haven't improved: " Every major dictionary and reference says to capitalize "Champagne" when it refers to the region, lower case it for the wine." That's the opening sentence of my proposal. Kauffner (talk) 13:05, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

After following the numerous arguments over the name I have to say that I do now understand that Côte d'Ivoire isn't just the "French" name but just an alternative name in English for the country, just like we don't call have the Spanish name of Los Angeles (and not The Angels etc.) but the difference with those sort of names is that I have seen that Ivory Coast is in far more common usage (especially here in the UK) and I would NEVER hear anyone over a conversation talk about "Côte d'Ivoire" and always "Ivory Coast". Regardless if it's a French or English or Swahili name for all I care, the common usage is "Ivory Coast". The government's attempts for us to use Côte d'Ivoire should be considered but overruled as otherwise we should also change United States to The United States of America or change Burma to Myanmar, where the government there also is trying to increase usage of the new name. I think we should seriously consider moving it to Ivory Coast, and I bet there will be fewer arguments over the talk page over moving it back to Côte d'Ivoire. Bezuidenhout (talk) 11:03, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Obviously, I agree, with Cote d'Ivoire of course being a redirect. And when or if the common usage in English eventually becomes Cote d'Ivoire someday, then it should be moved back. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:25, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Requested Move: Côte d'Ivoire → Ivory Coast

Côte d'Ivoire → Ivory Coast – All the major English-language news organizations use "Ivory Coast", including BBC, New York Times, AP, The Guardian, and CNN. This ngram shows that "Ivory Coast" is far more common than "Côte d'Ivoire" on Google Books. For every U.S. reader who types in "Cote d'Ivoire" as a search term, 35 type in "Ivory Coast", according to Insights. The numbers for Britain and Australia are similar. New timestamp so this doesn't start in the backlog. Jenks24 (talk) 11:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Kauffner (talk) 04:03, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Supporting material

The numbers in parenthesis are for the past year. This is an arbitrary restriction I added to reduce ghosting because in some cases the raw numbers are unrealistically high. (The New York Times site obviously doesn't have anywhere near 15,000 stories on this subject.)

Organization	Côte d'Ivoire	Ivory Coast	URLs
ABC News (Australia)	116 (3)	22,300 (243)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:www.abc.net.au/news/ "Ivory Coast" site:www.abc.net.au/news/
BBC	107 (26)	4,370 (1,990)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ "Ivory Coast" site:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
The Telegraph	91 (6)	966 (84)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ "Ivory Coast" site:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
The Times (London)	2 (0)	188 (0)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:www.thetimes.co.uk "Ivory Coast" site:www.thetimes.co.uk
The Economist	4,450 (518)	4,050 (73)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:www.economist.com "Ivory Coast" site:www.economist.com
CNN	172 (2)	2,390 (93)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:edition.cnn.com "Ivory Coast" site:edition.cnn.com
Fox News	81 (4)	1,110 (110)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:www.foxnews.com "Ivory Coast" site:www.foxnews.com
New York Times	151 (7)	15,300 (249)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:www.nytimes.com "Ivory Coast" site:www.nytimes.com
Wall Street Journal	267 (28)	1,360 (146)	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:online.wsj.com "Ivory Coast" site:online.wsj.com
SABC News (South Africa)	38	503	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:online.sabc.co.za "Ivory Coast" site:online.sabc.co.za
South African Times (London ironically)	1	4	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:online.southafricantimes.co.uk "Ivory Coast" site:online.southafricantimes.co.uk
iafrica (South Africa)	117	987	"Côte d'Ivoire" site:online.iafrica.com "Ivory Coast" site:online.iafrica.com
The Times (UK)	15	2623
The Guardian (UK)	8	3,242
Daily Mail (UK)	23	2363
The Sun (UK)	0	1453

Survey

Several editors contributed their views while I still working on the draft at User:Kauffner/RM_incubator Kauffner (talk) 07:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support - Until or if the French name becomes the predominant name in English-language sources, we should follow Wikipedia rules and use the current common name in English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:13, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like that happened 20 years ago. TDL (talk) 02:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok Danlaycock, good idea, if we take your reference then let's also move Mumbai back to Bombay, Yangon back to Rangoon, Zimbabwe back to Rhodesia or even Moldova back to Moldavia?? That one source is a load of rubbish. Bezuidenhout (talk) 09:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Ivorians may call it Cote D'Ivoire in the same way Germans call their country "Deutschland". The convention on Wikipedia is to use the English name of the country. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Correct, however unlike Deutschland, Cote d'Ivoire is also widely used in the English language (see Encyclopedia Britannica for example). The relevant question here is which is the WP:COMMONNAME. TDL (talk) 02:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Follow most common usage in reliable English sources. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:29, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - There's simply no evidence that Ivory Coast is more common. Google Ngram, Corpus of Contemporary American English, Google News (Cote d'Ivoire versus Ivory Coast) as well as nearly all major English-language encyclopedias and dictionaries (Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Oxford dictionary, Cambridge dictionary, Collins dictionary, Google Maps and Bing Maps) all favour Cote d'Ivoire over Ivory Coast. TDL (talk) 02:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support per common usage and Wikipedia's guideline on using English. "Ivory Coast" is routinely and usually used in English sources as the unqualified name for the country, i.e. without a parenthetical "Côte d'Ivoire" whereas "Côte d'Ivoire" often carries a parenthetical "Ivory Coast". Therefore, "Ivory Coast" is also preferable per the principle of least astonishment. As the nominee notes, educated readers who partake of multiple English news sources might be genuinely confused by seeing "Côte d'Ivoire" as a title. —  AjaxSmack  02:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME. --Taivo (talk) 02:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Give it a rest, there are no new arguments. Misapplying "common usage" like that we might as well move United States to America and United Kingdom to Britain. Mewulwe (talk) 02:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME, and the fact that this is the English, Wikipedia and all. LHM 02:43, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support, Wikipedia's guideline on using English, WP:SURPRISE, common usage all point to using "Ivory Coast" in modern English. Dictionaries, and Traditional Encyclopedias are repositories of knowledge, but do not dictate to people what words to use. There is no "Language Police" (regulatory body like the Royal Spanish Academy or Quebec Board of the French Language) for the English language, it evolves organically without a group of government regulators dictating "correct" terminology.--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 02:56, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's naming policies (WP:COMMONNAME) aren't based on what words people use, they're based on "prevalence in reliable English-language sources". Dictionaries, Traditional Encyclopedias and Maps/Atlases are precisely the types of sources we should follow. TDL (talk) 03:13, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - if the country calls itself "Côte d'Ivoire" officially, that is the name the page should be at. This is a country, not an entertainer or a President; it behooves Wikipedia to be precisely accurate when it comes to country names. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:00, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  So you are discounting Mexico, Spain, Germany, Russia, Venuzeula as examples of articles using the unofficial English variant of the country names?--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 03:09, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  Without looking into it, those might actually *be* the official names in English language. Just because "Côte d'Ivoire" originates from the French language doesn't mean it's not part of the English language too - nearly 30% of English word comes from French language. And of couse *it is* part of the English language since it's in all major dictionaries - Oxford Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary, etc. Laurent (talk) 03:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  And that's the problem, without looking into it you have no knowledge, and are just going with your gut. If you looked into it, you would find that none of these names are official, and English is not an official language in any of these countries, so there would be no reason to have official English names. --Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 03:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  But how about you, did you look into it? I didn't because I'm pretty sure that "Spain" and "Germany", just like "Côte d'Ivoire", are the correct names in English language. Just to give you an example - here's Côte d'Ivoire and Spain in the Oxford Dictionary. For España, they just wrote "Spanish name for Spain.". For "Ivory Coast" they wrote "Another name for Côte d'Ivoire". Note that they didn't write "English name for Côte d'Ivoire" because "Côte d'Ivoire" is the English name. Laurent (talk) 04:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  Neither "España" nor "Spain" is not the official name of the country in any language. The official name of "Spain" is: "Reino de España", which translates into English as "Kingdom of Spain", into French as "Royaume d'Espagne", etc. We are not concerned about the official name, as the common name is what is used. If "Ivory Coast" is another name for "Côte d'Ivoire" then it is also the English name for it. --Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 04:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  Below you wrote that "Ivory Coast" appears 191 million times in your custom Google search and 189 million for "Côte d'Ivoire". By these results, are you seriously arguing that "Côte d'Ivoire" is not a common name? I'd say both seem to be equally common. Now we just need to choose which one is correct according to authoritative sources like dictionaries, encyclopedia, international bodies, etc. and not just according to biased English news agencies. Laurent (talk) 04:49, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  Below, I was simply replying to/questioning on a comment. I did not argue any point. My reasoning for supporting "Ivory Coast" does not rest with only one "google search", or one Guideline, but a combination. You have to go deeper into the data. You have to look at the whole picture. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, are "published" on a very infrequent frequent basis relative to news reports, and other current sources, many are copied from previous versions or other documents of the same type. You also have to take into account the regional origin of the sources, as news outlets closer to the subject tend to use the local language's terminology instead of more common English terminology. For example, English media in Québec, will use french terms like cégep instead of using the more widely recognized term college, this will affect "google search" results. And this discussion seems to be turning into more of a circular argument than a discussion in my opinion.--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 05:15, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  But per your own admission, per the dictionary results Côte d'Ivoire is also the English name for the country. Therefore the argument is going nowhere as both are English names for the country. Nil Einne (talk) 07:06, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Absurd. We use United States, the name most commonly used in reliable English sources, not the official name, United States of America. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Yet another move request, and this one brings nothing new to the table because it is too biased to begin with. The nominator chose his favorite sources and compiled some statistic from that, but it means nothing since he ignored all the numerous sources that go against his preferred name. As outlined by TDL, all major encyclopedia and reference books use "Côte d'Ivoire". Likewise, all the international organizations - the UN, UN agencies, sport organizations, etc. also all use "Côte d'Ivoire". Of course, "Côte d'Ivoire" is also the name of the country, and it's not like it's written in Chinese or Arabic characters - even English-speakers can read that. As for the principle of least astonishment, well readers often go astonished when they read encyclopedia, that's called "learning something" and there's nothing wrong with learning the correct name of a country. The title "Ivory Coast" is in bold in the lead anyway so there's no possible confusion. Laurent (talk) 03:00, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Laurent. CIA factbook refers to it as "Cote d'Ivoire". As a note, google search rankings for "Ivory Coast" yield 118 million results, "Cote d'Ivoire" yields 135 million results, and "Côte d'Ivoire" yields 213 million results. Interestingly, that effect is almost reversed when the quotation marks are not included. (89.2 million, 36.5 million, and 56.5 million respectively) A similar search for English only sources yields 195 million, 151 million, and 201 million respectively when using quotations. I believe the searches highlight that "Côte d'Ivoire" is not only the official name, but is also the common name. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:35, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  Did you exclude "Wikipedia" in your searches? That does affect the results, and shows 191 million for "Ivory Coast", slightly lower than 195, and only 189 million for "Côte d'Ivoire", quite a larger drop from 201 million. --Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 04:37, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

  In any case, that would mean there is no common name at which point we get to choose. Without a common name, I prefer to use the official name used by the CIA and various government organisations. Ryan Vesey Review me! 05:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose – the "evidence" is way too flaky. The n-gram demo by TDL seems to make it clear that the country's official French name is the name more commonly used in books in recent decades. One would need a better reason to change away from it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Support As with those who voted on support for move, likewise some foreign countries like Burma and East Timor have kept their localized names. ApprenticeFan ^work 04:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Support - per Kauffner. Khazar2 (talk) 04:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - "Ivory Coast" has been a purely colloquial name for the country for years. Let's use the country's proper name, please. -Kudzu1 (talk) 05:03, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment changed to Oppose - I'm not sure how usual it is to have an unlisted pre-RM that doesn't show up on WP:AFRICA's alerts. I too was struck by the ngram per Dicklyon's comments. And frankly don't give a hoot what BBC says, there needs to be a WP essay WP:LOUSYSOURCES, that lists some of the weakness of news websites. I did a like-for-like search on both terms in Google Scholar with several key English hooks "+ africa" "+economy" "+trade" "+development" "+politics" and the results were:

• 17,400 for Cote d'Ivoire only
• 17,800 for Ivcry Coast only although a few were "Ivory Coast area" possibly meaning several countries

Not particularly different. I don't care either way. But it would have to be an RM argument presented using better methodology than Fox News rather than Britannica. Britannica is far from perfect, but it's a hell of a lot more encyclopedic than Fox News. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

change to Oppose - go with Britannica. Changed to oppose. Why? Saw Pam's note on Guardian style book below "Ivory Coast.. but isn't THE Ivory Coast" In other words "President of Ivory Coast". Well in that case "President of Cote d'Ivoire" gets more GBhits.

That and the fact that WP:AFRICA's alerts don't seem to be working, so WP:AFRICA editors may be unaware that this RM is even happening. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support per Kauffner's nomination and my comments last year. This RM is probably a good case of why previous RM participants should not be notified of a new RM. The most recent one ended as "no consensus", so of course if you notify everyone who participated in that discussion it's a near certainty that the new discussion will also be no consensus. Jenks24 (talk) 05:26, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Mewulwe, The Bushranger and Kudzu1. The official name should be used. MTC (talk) 05:28, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

We do not use "official names" in Wikipedia, else we would have "Republique du Francais", "Україна", etc. We use common English names. How do we determine common English names? Not just by looking up individual works such as Britannica, etc., but by looking at usage in media such as the New York Times, etc. So "Ivory Coast" appears in 20,300 results in the New York Times over the last year (the results seem way high, but I ran the search twice), but "Côte d'Ivoire" appears in only five results. In the Los Angeles Times "Ivory Coast" yields 37 results, while "Côte d'Ivoire" yields only four results. The Economist yielded four results for "Ivory Coast" over the past year and zero results for "Côte d'Ivoire" over the same period. It's not even a horse race when it comes to common usage in English, it is Ivory Coast. --Taivo (talk) 06:35, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Your first point ("Not just by looking up individual works") is the key point here. Obviously individual publications will prefer one form or the other. But the majority of books published in the English language in last 20 years use Cote d'Ivoire. How can that possibly be if Ivory Coast is the common name? TDL (talk) 08:27, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Like I've mentioned about Danlay, that source isn't too reliable as it still implies that we should us Stalingrad instead of Volgograd because it's "found more in books". What if in every book where Ivory Coast is written, they now also mention that an alternative name is (Côte d'Ivoire). Same for vice versa. Bezuidenhout (talk) 09:37, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support - In watching/reading the news it's almost always Ivory Coast... even just this month BBC, LA Times and NY Times had articles on Ivory Coast. Does anyone really use Cote-dIvoire on a regular basis other than maybe France? Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:07, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Weak support Oppose: my gut feeling goes with an oppose, but the Guardian style guide, in which I have great faith, says "Ivory Coast" (but stresses that it isn't "The Ivory Coast"). PamD 07:05, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

But since then, although I've heard the BBC News using "Ivory Coast", I've found that the British Government uses "Côte d'Ivoire" as does the International Olympic Committee (though they list it as "Ivory Coast" among the Cs in the A-Z order on at least one page!). Clearly both names are very commonly used, but "Côte d'Ivoire" seems the way to go. PamD 07:56, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:USEENGLISH - We have two competing terms which are widely used in the English language. WP:IRS Wikipedia has continually improved to decide on content based on the reliablity of sources not on the shear number of them, a fact that WP:COMMONNAME also echos - Interesting in this connection is also WP:MODERNPLACENAME. The above numbercrunchings made by a few people show that the better sources actually favour the current title. The English language and with it the use of the terms we use for foreign countries and places is constantly evolving. We have to go with that flow and not try to stem the tide. Spain was mentioned as a counter example further above. The difference to Côte d'Ivoire is its respective age and importance in the English speaking world (remember the armada). My guess will be that if developments continue as now in 50 or so years Espania or even España will be at the stage Côte d'Ivoire is now. Somewhere along the line we will have that discussion again should we all live that long. Agathoclea (talk) 07:41, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Support - For the simple fact that everyone here in the UK uses Ivory Coast. Bezuidenhout (talk) 09:00, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Thank you Laurent for putting a note on the corresponding French article. I strongly oppose this move for one reason as stated above. The official name of this country is "Côte d'Ivoire" not "Ivory Coast", though called the Ivory Coast in English. Ivory Coast can be redirected to Côte d'Ivoire and in the article's lead, the name Ivory Coast is already in bold. If Côte d'Ivoire is the name the inhabitants wish to use to refer to their country, then who are us to change it?Tamsier (talk) 11:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not base naming decisions on either official names or the desires of the residents. Its only criterion is common English usage. Read WP:COMMONNAME. --Taivo (talk) 12:19, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• I'm sorry Tamsier but what a load of bulls**t, why don't you march on over to Burma and get that changed to Myanmar then? How about hop on over to South Africa and change that to Republic of South Africa (its official name). Could always change Bill Clinton to William Clinton, his official (birth) name?? I don't care about official names, this is about what WE call it, this is Wikipedia, not a foreign office. Bezuidenhout (talk) 12:27, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• And since when do you have the right to say what inhabitants call it? If you look below you see that the inhabitants themselves call it Ivory Coast, I can't even imagine a person on the streets saying "Oh yes, I was born in "Cote d'Ivoire", English keyboards don't even have "ô" to spell the name correctly. Hence why in the past we use English alternatives for names such as Munich, Cologne or Copenhagen. Bezuidenhout (talk) 12:30, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support. The evidence is clear. We call it what reliable English-language sources call it. And that's "Ivory Coast". We also aim to call it what a majority of readers would be expecting us to call it. And that's "Ivory Coast". Powers ^T 12:34, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose; there are no new arguments here. We already know media uses both, in ratios that are possibly varying by context, sometimes geographically, and at least occasionally out of politics; and that it's possible to cherry pick sets that show almost exclusive use of one or the other. Picking one for the article name needs to be done as neutrally as possible (given that there are POV overloads on both version); and defaulting to what the country's official name is – and the name official bodies call it &nash; is the most rational action. USEENGLISH is a red herring, here, and smacks of colonialism. — Coren ^(talk) 12:38, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Using the French name smacks of kissing up, which is something that wikipedia is not supposed to do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:47, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - but not overwhelmingly strongly. ALl the sources listed above in the box are news sources. News today is, in general, aimed at a comparatively illiterate audience. Even 30 years ago when I was in college (yes, I am that old) business periodicals were discussing that TV, including TV news, was more or less aimed at the average 14 year old - the same might apply to other media as well. I think perhaps a more reliable source for how the subject is discussed might be print books. I have only one right here in front of me, the first edition of the Appiah/Gates Africana encyclopedia, but it includes its article on this country under the name "Cote d'Ivoire." I do not see that the evidence provided above in the box necessarily helps decide how the subject is referred to in such sources, but I would consider those sources a better indicator, and the one I have here uses the Cote d'Ivoire name. Part of the reason for the print news not using the CI name is the "ô" in "Côte", which isn't really available on most English typewriters. If that is at least part of the reason, I would consider that to be a very weak basis or partial basis for changing an article name. John Carter (talk) 16:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Support Great to see Kauffner bringing one of his top-notch proposals to this topic. Burma and East Timor are the obvious examples. And the WP:COMMONNAME argument is unassailable; I doubt most English speakers can even pronounce "Côte d'Ivoire." --BDD (talk) 17:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Another example is Taiwan, rather than the official Republic of China. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Support. It's the common, English name, as has been proven with reference to statistical data and individual, authoritative sources. Also, it's a lot easier and less surprising for readers to find and remember. Shrigley (talk) 17:28, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Neutral. Something seemed fishy about the ngrams. How could Kauffner's ngram be so different from TDL's ngram? I tried running them both with and without the mark over the "o" to see if that made a difference. Eventually, I figured out that TDL's ngram was using a lowercase "L" instead of an uppercase "i" - so, "lvoire" instead of "Ivoire". For whatever OCR mixed-up reasons, that seems to make a huge difference in results. So I ran another ngram, with all the permutations of "Ivory Coast", "Cote d'Ivoire", and "Côte d'Ivoire" with lowercase "l"s and uppercase "I"s. And what does it show? That "Cote d'Ivoire" caught and surpassed "Ivory Coast" around 1993. The greatest disparity was around 1997, but the gap has narrowed since, so that the two are nearly identical. To me, that indicates that either title is probably acceptable under WP's guidelines, as readers are about equally likely to encounter either title. If "Ivory Coast" continues to close the gap and regain predominance (does anyone know if ngrams will ever reach past 2008?), then we can revisit. But for now, there's no compelling reason to change. Dohn joe (talk) 18:48, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
  • COCA gives frequency numbers of 107 for "Ivory Coast" versus 6 for Cote d'Ivoire. So the above is a peculiarity of the Google Books database. Perhaps Googled OCR'd a shipment of UN-oriented material. Insights shows that vastly more readers are using "Ivory Coast" as a search term. Recognizability is Wiki's No. 1 titling criteria, per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Kauffner (talk) 19:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

A few points of clarification:

• As I previously explained to the nominator the last time he proposed this move, the posted stats have failed to account for the limitations of the Optical character recognition software used to scan these books. When one properly takes this into account (ie that capital l's are frequently misinterpreted as small l's) a much more sensible ngram results: 30 years ago Cote d'Ivoire usage was near non-existent, but when the country changed its name in 1985, usage of this moniker began increasing rapidly while Ivory Coast dropped equally quickly. It overtook Ivory Coast around 1993 and has been more common ever since. Using the Corpus of Contemporary American English database one finds that Cote d'Ivoire has nearly double the frequency (245) of Ivory Coast (140).
• Cote d'Ivoire is far more commonly used in news sources. A Google news search shows that Cote d'Ivoire gets more than double the number of hits of Ivory Coast when restricted to English-language sources from 2012. Major news organizations such as The Economist and CNN prefer Cote d'Ivoire.
  • Yes, you're right! Cote d'Ivoire is more common! After this request move, can we move the article from Côte d'Ivoire to Cote d'Ivoire. I can't believe how silly we have been, you have clearly pointed out that without the "ô" is more common!!! LET'S HAVE ANOTHER REQUESTED MOVE. Bezuidenhout (talk) 13:47, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Nearly all major English-language encyclopedias and dictionaries, including Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Oxford dictionary, Cambridge dictionary, Collins dictionary, Google Maps and Bing Maps use Cote d'Ivoire over Ivory Coast.

Google Maps also used Ireland for Republic of Ireland, Myanmar for Burma and in Africa used "Congo" for the Republic of Congo.

• As for the Google insights numbers, they have relevance to WP:COMMONNAME which is dictated by "its prevalence in reliable English-language sources". Obviously random people who entered text into a search engine box aren't reliable. TDL (talk) 01:28, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• It's good that you brought up the CNN entry, as it demonstrates the opposite of what you're claiming. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:42, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• The use of the CNN link to support Coat d'Ivory is laughable. Every article linked from that page uses the English "Ivory Coast". —  AjaxSmack  02:30, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• I guess he forgot to look at the details before he posted it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:45, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• I realize this is original research but, in professional dealings with individual 10-20 Ivorians (although they were not UN/NGOcrats) over several years, I have only had one person introduce himself as from "Côte d'Ivoire". The remainder have simply stated they were from "Ivory Coast". So using the English name is clearly not a huge issue of contention or offense in this regard. —  AjaxSmack  02:30, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• I checked the Corpus of Contemporary American English, but the frequency numbers I got were nothing like TDL's:

	2000-2004	2005-2009	2010-2012
Ivory Coast	142	53	107
Cote Ivoire	17	8	6

Kauffner (talk) 09:33, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

• My search of the Economist also shows that the above claim about that publication is false. What the style guides to media say is irrelevant. What the journalists actually use is relevant. During the last year, four articles have used "Ivory Coast", zero have used "Côte d'Ivoire". Style guide be damned :p --Taivo (talk) 10:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)