Talk:Edward Winslow Hincks

Spelling of name; description as career officer accuracy

General Hinks or Hincks dropped the "c" in the spelling of his name only for a period of 10 years, although these years coincide with his military service. Eicher and Eicher spell the name as "Hinks." Ezra J. Warner spells it as "Hincks." Is it really accurate to describe General Hinks as a career army officer when he only served for a period of 10 years?Donner60 (talk) 23:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 13 November 2017

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved  — Amakuru (talk) 14:36, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

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Edward Winslow Hinks → Edward Winslow Hincks – I'm a descendant of Edward, and am requesting his title name be spelled correctly as was his birth name HincksMonitor (talk) 14:31, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support: Good move, but do it per WP:COMMONNAME (Hincks is the most common spelling in reliable sources [1]), and per his own headstone. The "because my branch of the family prefers this spelling" and "one spelling is older than the other" ideas are irrelevant, though. Before the modern era, surname spelling was very fluid, and often differed even between first cousins in the same town or between parents and their children by the time the latter reached adulthood; this was especially true in colonial America and the early United States.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:09, 13 November 2017 (UTC); clarified: 16:22, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
• @HincksMonitor and SMcCandlish: queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

  @Anthony Appleyard: To be clear, I was providing a better rationale for the move, not "querying" it. Still, a discussion won't hurt nobody. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:22, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support per SMcCandlish -- Netoholic @ 17:46, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support as per source In ictu oculi (talk) 19:53, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support per nomination and SMcCandlish. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 00:14, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Extended discussion

I'm still fairly new to Wikipedia's editing format, so I'm not really sure how to format this properly, but, while changing name spelling in colonial times may have been common, it wasn't his birth name that was changed, the Army simply misspelled it when he joined, so his last name was spelled "Hincks" for most of his life. HincksMonitor (talk) 15:33, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Doesn't matter here. Please see WP:COMMONNAME, WP:OFFICIALNAME, WP:TRUTH. We use whatever is most common in reliable sources, not what someone thinks is more "technically correct". The article text is the place to get into any noteworthy disputes in sources about what something's or someone's name is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:01, 18 November 2017 (UTC)