Talk:William, Duke of Brunswick

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I've never seen this guy being referred to as William VIII. What is this based on? AFAIK he just called himself William. Känsterle 20:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

True, he didn't use the number. But there were seven other dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg named William, see the ruler lists. So we need to disambiguate somehow. I think "William VIII" (even though the number is not usually used) is better than "William (born 1806)" or "William (19th century)" or any such thing. William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg already exists, although there should probably be a disambiguation page at that location. In fact, many rulers known by a number never used the number themselves; numbers for rulers are often decided on by historians. --Chl 21:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What about William, Duke of Brunswick? The others were Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg. It is true that numbers for rulers, especially medieval rulers, are often decided on by historians, but I doubt this is the case for 19th century rulers. What really matters here, IMHO, is how the rulers called themselves. The first king of modern Italy was Victor Emmanuel II, the second German Emperor was Frederick III. The current Grand Duke of Luxembourg is Henri, not Henri VIII, even though there were seven previous rulers of Luxembourg called Henry. Känsterle 05:47, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree that the historical usage should decide. But we can't have several pages with the same name. "William, Duke of Brunswick" is not such a good idea, in my opinion, since the title "Duke of Brunswick" was never used AFAIK -- the dukes always called themselves Brunswick-Lüneburg. Chl 17:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]