Talk:Saint Jacob

"ST Jacobs" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect ST Jacobs. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 26#ST Jacobs until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:56, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 4 September 2026

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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Moved as an uncontested request with minimal participation. If there is any objection within a reasonable time frame, please ask me to reopen the discussion; if I am not available, please ask at the technical requests page. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 12:55, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

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St. Jacob (disambiguation) → Saint Jacob – Saint James is treated as ambiguous and there is no reason to treat Jacob differently. Srnec (talk) 03:29, 4 September 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 13:25, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

followup

I came here after noticing this change. In the meantime I added a set of redirects that use the same term (Jacob), so these pipe links don't look as odd. --Joy (talk) 13:21, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Ping @Jeffrey34555 just in case. --Joy (talk) 13:21, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

@Srnec is Saint Jacob the Apostle actually practically ambiguous? Neither the James, son of Alphaeus nor the James the Less article mention the use of the name Jacob in reference to them. --Joy (talk) 08:28, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Possibly it could be to someone whose native language uses something similar to "Jacob" for Saints James the Greater and James the Less (the latter of whom is missing from this dab page), and who is guessing the English form? But in that case the target of Saint Jacob the Apostle, Jacob the Apostle and variants with "St" and "St." should be the dab page James the Apostle, not this one. I'll make these changes unless anyone objects. Ham II (talk) 08:53, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

The issue is that when one searches for "Saint Jacob the Apostle", there's apparently 9 English-language books using the phrase, so that usage may have crept in to the extent that is relevant for our navigation (where we can have an average English reader look up the phrase and want to be able to learn what that means). --Joy (talk) 09:07, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

That seems clear-cut to me; there is evidence (however scant) of "Saint Jacob the Apostle" in use in English, and someone could potentially look the name up while reading one of those few books. Ham II (talk) 09:38, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Mind, that's 9 Google Books search results for that long phrase. For just "Saint Jacob", I get 30 pages of output. --Joy (talk) 09:10, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

There's a Saint Jacob dab page where a search for that term will lead. There should be interlinking between the various "Saint James" and "Saint Jacob" pages (including James the Apostle), so that readers can arrive at the right destination; the names can be used interchangeably to refer to the same figures. Conversely, there are also things named after those figures (churches in particular) where only one of those names is in use. Ham II (talk) 09:38, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, but the tricky circumstance is that we just disambiguated that the other day, so I do wonder whether the fact that Saint Jacob led to the Greater/Elder since 2005 was just undetected ambiguity or if it's an actually largely synonymous usage in that context. --Joy (talk) 09:52, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

I also cross-posted to Talk:James, brother of Jesus as the title seems plausible there, but it's not clear. --Joy (talk) 08:33, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

I based the RM on the fact that "James" and "Jacob" are synonymous anglicizations. They are different names in English, yes, and some other languages also have the distinction, but whether you prefer to say James of Nisibis or Jacob of Nisibis is really up to you.

I changed the redirect Saint Jacob the Apostle because if "Saint Jacob" is ambiguous and "James the Apostle" is ambiguous, it doesn't really make sense to pretend that the rare phrase "Saint Jacob the Apostle" just happens to be crystal clear. There is in fact a book that uses 'Jacob' to refer to James, brother of Jesus, who is described as an apostle in Galatians 1:19. Srnec (talk) 23:38, 14 September 2026 (UTC)