Talk:Russell Thomas (politician)

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Common name[edit]

An earlier edit moved this page from 'William Stanley Russell Thomas' to where it is now based upon how he has been presented in Hansard and treating this as his common name. I know of other sources that have suggested his common name was Russell Thomas. When it comes to IDing MPs from Hansard, those records are unreliable when they come to presenting the names of members, often using more than once style of description. A common Hansard practice was to record the first forename only. Since it is not clear what common name this individual used, it is best to title the article using the full name. Graemp (talk) 12:57, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If there is evidence that Russell Thomas was indeed the commonly used name, then obviously that should be the name of the page reflecting WP article naming policy. No such evidence has yet been presented. There isn't however any policy that the complete full name is used for article titles. MapReader (talk) 07:36, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hansard is the only evidence so far presented that his common name may be William Thomas. Hansard is also the source for evidence that his common name may be Russell Thomas. They use this form 63 times. This is what I mean when I talk about Hansard being an unreliable source. Until we know for certain, we should retain the full name as the article title. Graemp (talk) 10:23, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]