Talk:Hydra

Most commonly used name

What would people think of changing the island's name everywhere to "Idhra?" "Hydra" is no longer standard in English: looking over major guidebooks I see in one of them "Hydra," in another, "Ydra," and in another "Idhra." This last form best represents in English what the name really is. Maybe a cross reference to "Hydra" could be somehow put in. (WT-en) Sailsetter 11:41, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

I think Hydra is still the most commonly used name in the English language, and it is our policy to name articles accordingly. Both wikipedia & the island's official English-language site use "Hydra" and I got the following English-restricted google search results, even controlling for the term "monster":

1. Hydra Greece -monster — 422,000
2. Idhra Greece — 948
3. Ydra Greece — 67,900
4. Idra Greece — 39,500

In any rate, if multiple names are in use, it's best to list those in the introductory blurb, as well as to create redirect articles for the less-commonly used variants. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 14:38, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

Having been there last year, I can confirm that "Hydra" is far and away the most common name in English, with Ydra a distant second. You're more than welcome to propose guidelines at Project:Romanization for handling Greek names, as this is not the first time we've had discussions like this. (WT-en) Jpatokal 15:00, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

In view of the above discussion, I've made the following changes at the beginning of this section:

• put in alternative spellings of the name in a parenthesis
• given the Greek pronunciation (might be useful sometimes in Greece, and explains why it's sometimes spelled Idhra)
• removed the name in Greek characters. I actually like the idea of including place names in Greek, but it isn't on any of the other pages I looked at, and it should be done everywhere or nowhere, so I took it out here.
• altered the URL so it points directly to the English version of the page.

On this last point I'm not sure that URL should remain. The page has the appearance of being an officially backed tourist page, but it nowhere (so far as I could see) specifically says so, and I didn't think it was very useful. I find much more useful the page at http://www.hydradirect.com, but that seems to be a semi-official amateur-run page, and I'm not sure linking to it would be within policy. (WT-en) Sailsetter 10:55, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

I'll make cross references from the alternate spellings if I ever figure out how to do it; if someone who knows wants to do it now, please go ahead. (WT-en) Sailsetter 11:10, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

I see now that in removing the Greek characters (see above) I may not have been in compliance with Wikivoyage policy. But there seems to be a great deal of inconsistency in this and I think the policy needs to be discussed, so I'll leave the change for now. If anyone wants to add the Greek script back, go ahead. (WT-en) Sailsetter 19:00, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

I've restored the Greek characters, it's always good to have the local spelling. Many (most?) of our Greece articles are a mess, so please don't take too much guidance from them... (WT-en) Jpatokal 12:11, 15 March 2008 (EDT)