Talk:Frederick Olmsted Jr./Archive 1

Archive 1

Request to remove the middle name

Hi, I've received a request to fix the name of the subject of this article on my talk page. They say that the subject had no middle name. Looking at the references present on the article, I could get only one hit to the word "Erskine", and that referred to the subject's father, Frederick E. Olmsted. If anyone can find a reference to show that the son also had the same middle name, then ok. Otherwise, we should remove the middle name from the article and move to the page to the right location. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 08:24, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Source #1 documents the middle name. Also, he was a jr., meaning he had the same name as his father. Rublamb (talk) 09:16, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@MPGuy2824: I have been through the Census and official records. His birth records were created later, so they are not helpful. The 1920 Census indicates that there is a middle name but has the initial "J" which probably stood for Jr. but got transcribed incorrectly. (His father's middle name is "X" in the 1910 Census so we know this is not always a reliable source). In the 1930 and the 1940 Census, he is not listed with an initial. Also, no initial with society security and draft registration. So, if he had a middle name (which I believe he did at birth, before the divorce of his parents), he was not using it legally as an adult. Nor did he appear to use the suffix "Jr." on legal records. However, he was only 14 or 15 when his father died in 1925, so he did not need to use Jr. to differentiate himself from his father. Based on my history and genealogy work, someone could change their birth name at will in the early 20th century, locking into a legal name only after getting a social security number.

Since we use the common name for Wikipedia articles and assuming that the person who contacted you is a family member, it looks like the correct name for the article is "Frederick Olmsted (artist), with either Frederick Erskin Olmsted Jr. or Frederick Olmsted Jr. in the lede. It also looks like he went by Fred and Ric, so maybe the article should be Fred Olmsted or Rick Olmsted if he used one of those as an artist. However, let me do some more digging before moving the article as its existing name makes a better differentiation from his contemporary and cousin, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who did WPA landscape projects. Many "reliable" sources about Olmsted's murals refer to him as Frederick Law Olmsted, making this even muddier. With that in mind, what do you think the new name should be? Rublamb (talk) 15:51, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

This National Register Nomination Form for Coit Tower calls him Frederick Erskin Olmsted Jr. as the artist of a work. Elsewhere, he is called Fred Olmsted. Rublamb (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC)