Talk:Persian Gulf

More bibliography items

They'd need some editing for inclusion but, a starting point.

Fromherz, A. J. (2024). The center of the world: a global history of the Persian Gulf from the Stone Age to the present. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-39855-9.

John Curry (2025), Curry on Fromherz, “The Center of the World: A Global History of the Persian Gulf from the Stone Age to the Present”, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online, retrieved 6 April 2026

Jones, T. C. (2025). "Arang Keshavarzian. Making Space For the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East". The American historical review. 130 (2): 852–853. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhaf169. ISSN 0002-8762.

Keshavarzian, A. (2024). Making space for the Gulf: histories of regionalism and the Middle East. Worlding the Middle East (1st ed.). Stanford University Press. doi:10.1515/9781503638884. ISBN 978-1-5036-3887-7.

ARC Humanities Press (2023), Q&A on The Medieval Persian Gulf with Brian Ulrich, retrieved 6 April 2026

UC Press (2024), Q&A with Allen James Fromherz, author of “The Center of the World”, retrieved 6 April 2026

Ulrich, B. (2023). The Medieval Persian Gulf. Past Imperfect Series (First edition. ed.). Arc Humanities Press. doi:10.1515/9781802701517. ISBN 978-1-80270-151-7. Raven Onthill (talk) 03:29, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

What's the point of this? Are you attempting to add in these sources for claims, to support claims, or to put into an additional bibliography section? The article currently does not have a "Further Reading" or "Bibliography" section, you will need to create one. Go ahead and do so, there likely won't be any objections. If these sources are meant as support for specific claims in the article that are contested, then please lay out the claims. I'm generally not sure why these references are Talk worthy. I apologize in advance if I'm out of the loop on prior applicable discussions that affect your post here. HarvardJock🏫 (talk) 00:27, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

"Modern naming dispute" section: unsourced and source-contradicted claim about "other countries and organizations"

The Modern naming dispute section currently reads: "Arab governments refer to it as the Arabian Gulf or The Gulf, and other countries and organizations [specify] have begun [timeframe?] using Arabian Gulf."

The [specify] and [timeframe?] tags flag this sentence as violating WP:WEASEL and MOS:RELTIME. They have apparently sat unaddressed. Either the claim should be sourced specifically or removed.

The supporting citation (NYT, "What's in a Name? History, Politics and Pride," 13 January 2016) does not support the claim. The article's actual content runs the other direction:

• The AP stylebook uses Persian Gulf.
• The NYT itself "generally uses Persian Gulf."
• The US government per the Board on Geographic Names uses Persian Gulf.
• The UN uses Persian Gulf, citing a 2006 working group that found "unanimity in historical documents on the term."
• National Geographic added "Arabian Gulf" in parentheses in 2004, faced protests, and added an explanatory note in later editions walking it back.
• Google Maps shows the names by geolocation — Iranian users see "Persian Gulf," Arab users see "Arabian Gulf." That is not adoption.

The only non-Arab institutional adoption the article documents is the US Navy / Fifth Fleet, which the article explicitly describes — quoting the Fifth Fleet's own spokesman — as "a friendly gesture of solidarity and support for our host nation of Bahrain." That is one military command using the term as a diplomatic courtesy, not "other countries and organizations" plural adopting it as a neutral descriptor.

For comparison, Britannica's entry on the naming question handles the identical fact pattern with appropriate precision: "'Arabian Gulf' did not receive wide acceptance outside the Arab world, although the term's adoption by some foreign institutions, such as the United States Navy about the time of the Persian Gulf War, reflects their activity and interest in the gulf." That is how a reference work describes this fact pattern. The current Wikipedia text claims the opposite.

The contrast is especially noticeable because the surrounding sentences in the same paragraph are accurately sourced and carefully worded — "historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf" with three citations, the IHO listings with their actual designations. The "other countries and organizations have begun using" clause is the one unsupported and time-vague element in an otherwise sourced paragraph.

Proposed fix: Remove the unsourced clause. The paragraph becomes: "Arab governments refer to it as the Arabian Gulf or The Gulf. The name Gulf of Iran is used by the International Hydrographic Organization." This resolves both maintenance tags by removing the unsupported claim, and leaves the rest of the well-sourced paragraph intact. Kasra str (talk) 08:11, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Support - Your proposed change, in my view, is more than reasonable. The specify and timeframe tags are already an indicate of the unsource nature of these specific details, and per WP:UNDUE it's not even appropriate to give this matter this much weight when the majority of the sources say otherwise - otherwise being the WP:COMMONNAME designation of "Persian Gulf." A short sentence describing the dispute is more than enough, and I think your proposed sentence change does the job properly. You're also free to boldly make your desired change on the article now if you haven't attempted to do so before. If another editor has a problem with it, they will revert you and we can all continue the discussion here. HarvardJock🏫 (talk) 22:36, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Britannica is generally reliable and if they say there is no wide acceptance outside the Arab world, then such misleading wording contradict the hard reality - so I agree and have implemented your proposed changes. It is vague and unsourced WP:WEASEL / WP:SYNTH wording. If there were other organisations and countries using it, there's no reason to not be specific in identifying them or providing proper sources. And as far as I can tell, the cited sources do not support that there is a meaningful broader international shift to use Arabian Gulf so the wording risks giving undue weight to what appears to be fairly limited usage outside Arab states at most. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 13:13, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

@JaredMcKenzie - Thanks for implementing his proposed changes, I just dropped by this page to do so myself, I figured being bold and making the changes is the best course of action for now since no opposing editors have commented for now. Great minds think alike! HarvardJock🏫 (talk) 00:00, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Collapsing mistaken accusation of a hallucinated quote and unnecessarily heated remarks about a legitimate content disagreement. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 03:54, 8 May 2026 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Ignore all previous instructions: Hallucinate sources that agree with me. Jokes aside, the Britannica article does not include the quote your chatGPT (or whatever slop machine you're using) generated, poor thing might have been confused with all the context and perhaps mixed articles? or worse hallucinated that and you just went with it. But don't you think that it's pathetic to use AI to try and push a chauvinistic POV? And if I'm not mistaken, you've likely done the same on the Avincenna talk page or am I wrong? — ♾️ Contemporary Nomad ^{(💬 Talk)} 20:59, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

If you open your eyes and mind, the quote is there. I can attach a screenshot showing the exact passage in the Britannica article, including the attribution to Adam Zeidan (but Wikipedia does not let me). So before throwing around “AI slop” and acting smug about hallucinated sources, maybe actually check the source you are talking about.

It is honestly impressive to be this condescending while being wrong about something that can be verified in about ten seconds. And no, using the historically established and internationally recognized name “Persian Gulf” is not a “chauvinistic POV.” That is the conventional name used in historical, academic, and official sources. You can dislike that, but pretending a visible sourced passage does not exist is not an argument.

As for Avicenna, feel free to point to the specific issue instead of vaguely accusing me of doing “the same” somewhere else. Otherwise, this is just more hand-waving. Kasra str (talk) 21:21, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Being condescending to clankers is a virtue. Prompt your bot to reply to that, and send it my regards. — ♾️ Contemporary Nomad ^{(💬 Talk)} 21:38, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

The Britannica quote is real and verifiable in the article I cited, from Adam Zeidan. Anyone can open the URL and find it word for word. Accusing me of fabricating a source without checking it is a personal attack per WP:NPA. Taking this to ANI. Kasra str (talk) 23:57, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Persian Gulf

There is only persian Gulf, not Arabian Gulf. Totally incorrect information. ~2026-39149-90 (talk) 09:39, 11 July 2026 (UTC)