Talk:Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff Sr./Archives/2011

This guy's name

breaks the page! Salad Days 04:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

^ WHO CARES, COMMUNIST FASCIST???

I protest!

I created the page, and though I recognize that the last name does "break the page," I contend that "Wolfe+585, Senior" is the correct title for the page and I would like permission to remove the tag.--Desmond Hobson 16:45, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Hoax?

I don't quite believe this article. I am willing to believe that some editions of the Guinness Book listed this guy, but as he was delisted from there, it seems they are not confident about his, either. Is there any reason to believe that he is not a fictitious entry in the Guinness book? His name was definitely not given to him in Germany (probably violates German naming laws), did American immigration officers grant ridiculous names like these at some point in time? An old AFD discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adolph Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenberdorf, where this article was deleted. Kusma (討論) 15:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Disputed

I just added 'disputed' for I’m German and after having read the article I was bursting out laughing. The 'name’ given here is actually a story of a heroic man that faced a space ship (German: ‘Raumschiff’), and of aliens seeking a habitable planet (here: ‘bewohnbar planeten’). Well, I could be mislead for most of the grammar is wrong, especially when it comes to the use of cases and articles. I say it’s a huge yet funny hoax and one should really think about deleting this article. To prove the given statements and for your amusement I’ll try to translate this nonsense:

Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff (this part could be a true after all) was by old a very reliable shepherd, whose sheep were well taken care of and well protected from assaults by their rapacious enemies (Now it gets almost incomprehensible), (The enemies) who appeared to the wanderer (traveler) 12000 years ago… The spaceship is source of power and was on a long journey in the ‘between-star-room’ (space, German 'Weltraum', here 'zwischensternartigraum'), seeking a star which was habitable and where intelligent life was present and could reproduce itself joyfully, lifelong joy and peace, with not one source of fright from attacks from other intelligent creatures from the ‘between-star-room’ (space). Ultem --149.225.36.146 02:39, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, it is corrupted and awkward German. I believe it's just a fictitious entry... --Evilboy 19:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

For all we know, it is likely that the phrase in the name was chosen on purpose. I don't see any evidence what-so-ever that it is a fictitious entry.

ZOUAVMAN LE ZOUAVE 21:41, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Why can't a person's name tell a story? A lot of cultures have names that encode geneology, profession, or other characteristics about the person or his ancestors. If this is listed Guiness then we can say it's listed in Guiness, if anyone can find a reference debunking it then we can also say it's been debunked. Fairly straightforward verifiability-proofing. It would also be interesting to include the "translation" in the article, too. Bryan Derksen 03:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems fake to me....:Stirb Nicht Vor Mir:. 12:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The idea of a name telling a story is as fake-seeming as that of a name with more than 500 characters. If it's backed up by sources, there's not much we can do about it! Zouavman Le Zouave 18:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

"Raumschiff" is as much medieval German as "spaceship" is medieval english. This is a total hoax. Pekka.gaiser (talk) 09:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It's weird that his Initials spell out ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.. 62.2.75.66 (talk) 12:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge

I removed the merge tag to List of unusual personal names, despite the AfD, since that list is all summary entries; including the full name on that page and any of the info (such as references) would break the list. If we keep the article, we ought to just keep it. -- phoebe/(talk) 03:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Keep it here! --172.212.181.50 (talk) 09:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It should stay

Even if the name's factuality is debatable, it is still notable for being an absurdly long name that was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. Not being true doesn't make something unnotable—see geocentric model. Its notability is from being accepted for some time, not that it is true. The same principle can apply here. —Dmbrown00 16:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to "verify" this to make it indisputable, but my father, who grew up in Philly, has been telling the story of this guy (must be the son of the person here) with this name for years. I'm going to see if he has anything with the name on it. He always said the guy went by "Wolfe." I've been able to say the short form "Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff" since I was in the 5th grade. According to my father, "Wolfe" said that "Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff" was shortened. -kurgen99

Additional sources

Besides those I just added, others might want to review: 1952 Bedford Gazette, Dixon Evening Telegraph, Lima News, 1955 Independent Record, 1964 Daily Review, Salisbury Times, Tri-City Herald, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, 2007 San Gabriel Valley Tribune.209.243.55.22 (talk) 22:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

And: [1], [2], [3], [4] 209.243.55.22 (talk) 18:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I've checked the Google Books links and found nothing reliable concerning the unanswered questions about Wolfe+'s life. I cannot get access to newspaperarchive.com. Would someone with access please check the cited articles for specific biographical information, something besides "lighter side" pieces? I'm concerned that we have an echo chamber operating here.

The German discussion forum here simply cites the 1978 Guiness Book for the long version and notes that by 1997 the name was listed merely as Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff. Guiness gives no explanation. Other cites discussed there are merely jokes.

I've flagged this article as needing historical information, and now think it should also be flagged as a probable hoax as well. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 14:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've flagged the article as a possible hoax. Have also noticed that some of the sources that cite only URLs (e.g. at Google Books) have malfunctioning URLs that fail to turn up an article. Without more specific publishing data (volume, number, year), these footnotes are useless. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 16:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Certainly more history is needed, but please help us understand where is the alleged hoax. Museum of Hoaxes says "seems to be true". The statement is that he has used the long form as his personal name, which he clearly has; he was photographed for Guinness, as well as for the 1964 wire story, both times with the long name in the picture. Yes, he has also used shorter forms. Who are we to say that his name is not what he says it is? JJB 06:24, 23 February 2009 (UTC) It appears the Google Books links use a session ID that eventually expires. I was able to get snippets fine by redoing the same search. So they are verifiable enough, but it would be nice to have more. JJB 06:31, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds hoaxy — but are you saying that the article should be placed in Category:Hoaxes, or should be marked with {{Hoax}} and deleted? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 03:02, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Neither. I'm saying that the reliable sources properly back up the article, and that there is no reliable source even positing that the long form is a hoax, to my knowledge, let alone providing evidence. The hoax theory is original research of WP editors and is not even a POV found in the reliable sources. If evidence turns up that there is such a reliably sourced POV (or even a non-OR implication from a citable German naming law), that can be thrown into the article, but it must be weighted against the known sources, and WP is not to declare something a hoax unilaterally; it must wait until a supermajority of reliable sources consider it so. Removing hoax tag accordingly. JJB 03:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Reliable sources? I doubt that, as Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. While I agree that Wikipedia should not declare something a hoay unilaterally, it should also not report something as true without having sufficient proof for it. Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff sounds like an unusually long but totally reasonable German surname. But the long form is so ridiculous that it should be backed up with some kind of legal document. An entry in the Guinnes Book and some odd newspaper articles are not sufficient. With the change to the short form another hin that Guinness realized they made an error with the long version. So while Wikipedia jzeller (talk) 16:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! But if you want to invoke that rule, you need to explain why you think this is extraordinary; it's not extraordinary at all that certain individuals dogmatically insist that their names are unprocessable somethings. It seems we are talking about 2 different standards for determining what someone's name is. I believe that throughout WP we've used the standard that if a person self-identifies with a name in reliable sources, that's his name, or one of them. But this article is occasionally being held to a different standard, namely, that the only real name is that provable on a legal document (incidentally, a court record with the 35-letter name misspelled has already been cited). All that is really necessary is for someone to research a high-res copy of the wire photo already linked here, which will show the face and the name together as he spells it, without any ability to doubt or fudge, and that should settle the question of what name he self-identifies as. Then we need to find date of death, which might involve Philadelphia library research or contact with the son, and clarify the ANS connection, which might be findable through them. JJB 16:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

One more note on the "long version"

It contains German words using umlauts (e.g. Schäfer, Sorgfältigkeit, beschützen), but these were probably not printed in the newspaper accounts because it was customary for American newspapers to eliminate all diacritical marks from foreign names. (Still is in many cases.) I suppose it would constitute original research to "correct" the name by adding umlauts.

Anyway, it's clear that we're dealing with an old episode of sustained silliness here, and should treat the topic accordingly. My best guess is that the American Name Society capitalized on Wolfeschlegel­steinhausen­bergerdorff's (genuine) name as a publicity stunt, and they had a little extra fun by working a satire of contemporary science fiction into their fancifully lengthened version of this supposedly ancient family name. The press had fun with the story and kept retelling it, and it kept popping up occasionally in books and periodicals to the present day. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 16:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Formatting

Considering the unsually long string of characters stretches the page unattractively, can't we use some code to wrap it? --92.29.17.22 (talk) 22:43, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Names - ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUWXYZ

Did anybody else notice how he has a name assigned for every letter of the alphabet?

Adolph-Blaine-Charles-David-Earl-Frederick-Gerald-Hubert-Irvin-John-Kenneth-Lloyd-Martin-Nero-Oliver-Paul-Quincy-Randolph

Sherman-Thomas-Uncas-Victor-William-Xerxes-Yancy-Zeus-Wolfe........

I think that should be in the article.......

~balegobop

Balegobop (talk) 17:02, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Where did you notice it, if not in the article? —Tamfang (talk) 07:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Alphabet

Did you see you can read all the alphabet in is name ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.201.234.209 (talk) 05:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Im a skeptic

I dont believe this name actually existed. Its not pronounceable and there is no point in giving anyone this name... unless youre a perverse parent who is being malicious and just wants to be the cause of a world record. And if it ever did happen Im sure the guy would have changed his own name to something more real. Its absurd in every possible way. Unless this guy changed his own name TO that... but then it doesnt really count as a name, does it?

It is readily pronounceable to anyone familiar with German as a 1st or 2nd language.
German concatenates words together routinely; that, per se, is not exceptional. Varlaam (talk) 19:15, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Sources not working, etc.

• Almost none of the sources seem to have working links.
• We need the Philadelphia Inquirer article.
• We need better data on the Shingle (now The Philadelphia Lawyer) articles etc. See here.
• FWIW, the "12th edition" of the Guiness book (mentioned by the Museum of Hoaxes article) was published in 1973.
• Scientific journal citations, especially in such contested or contestable cases, MUST include volume number, ideally volume+issue number.
• Names journal gives 3 records in vol. 1-15:
  • Vol. 1 p.204
  • Vol. 4 p.188 (there is also this on p.62 of Vol. 3 or 4, possibly a street address?)
  • Vol. 8 p.87-88 (the one already mentioned in the text)

All things considered, the "short" version is a pretty standard non-hyphenated variant of the composite family names that are found in Germany sometimes (albeit longer than the usual double form, but compare the quadruple Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann-Maier-Leibnitz, which originates in a different way however). In his case: "Wolf[e]schlegel-[S]teinhausen-[B]erge[r]dorf[f]".

Neither "Wolfschlegel" nor "Steinhausen" nor "Bergedorf" is in and by itself unusual; a plausible original version -- considering some remarkable oddities of German personal name etymology -- may be translated as "[descendant of the] Wolf-slayer living in the Drubbel built of stone at Bergedorf near Hamburg"; the technically correct form being Wolfschlegel zu Steinhausen in Bergedorf or similar with only "Wolfschlegel" being the actual family name (an occupational/nickname, or perhaps meaning "Wolf-mallet" in reference to a house mark). The complete tripartite form would indeed have been a fairly standard "family name" in much of the German-speaking countries until the late 19th century, except the "Bergedorf" part would only be used when travelling abroads. Alternatively -- as in the Noelle-Neumann-Maier-Leibnitz example above -- the tripartite form may be a composite arrived at through marriage.

OTOH, the long version just reeks.

It would almost certainly have been illegal and a punishable offence in Germany at the time it was supposedly given. It is essentially impossible that it pre-dates the family's entry into the USA. The "alien astronauts" part is also telling; the term Raumschiff is apparently unknown before the 1890s, which is reasonable considering that popular literature dealing with extraterrestrial/extra-Sol system civilizations appeared from the 1870s or 1880s onwards (Jules Verne's Moon was uninhabited). The spelling errors and lack of umlauts also argue strongly for a post-immigration origin. In combination with the common-law naming regulations in the USA and the civil-law regulations in Germany, it's almost a given that the name even in the nonhyphenated "short" version did not pre-date before the immigration.

(Interesting question: should it turn out that the original Shingle article was a hoax, how do we overcome the OR problem?) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 06:56, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

And it was certainly standard US Immigration practice, at that time anyway, to take an immigrant's crazy name and convert it into something manageable, pronounceable, and workable in American society and in English generally. Passing out of US Immigration, his name should have been Bergerdorf, for example.

Varlaam (talk) 19:03, 28 September 2011 (UTC)