Talk:Empress Teimei

Initial message

In the article there is now "kujō no miya sadako joō". I think the writer of that has not bothered to check proper Japanese sources, and has only done that wording by emulating Japanese imperials. Kuge nobles, such as Princes and Princesses Kujo, were a different thing than imperial princes. I regard words "miya" and possibly "joo" as suspect. And the Meiji-era word for "kuge prince" and their family members is absent. Arrigo 06:48, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

"Dowager" ?

If "dowager" means, as I think it does, a widow receiving a dower, the article's name is fanciful.oh

At first, she was only "The Empress" when her husband was reigning (Japanese emperors and empresses have no name during their reign ; they are sometimes called by their first name (Sadako, Hirohito,...) but it's only a western convenience never used in Japan), and then "The Empress Dowager" when she was a widow and her son was the emperor, and finally "Empress Teimei" when she died and received her definitive posthumous name. So, "dowager" means she is alive while her husband is dead, and "Teimei" means she's dead. That's absurd. Since she's dead let's rename the article into Empress Teimei. Švitrigaila 18:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It feels weird to respond to this after 16 years, but I think I need to point out that even though your analysis is reasonable, it does not necessarily apply to all the subjects. Sadako's posthumous name is indeed Empress Teimei (貞明皇后, Teimei-kōgō), but there are empresses whose posthumous name contains the word "dowager", such as Empress Dowager Eishō (英照皇太后, Eishō-kōtaigō). It depends on the specific title that is conferred upon the deceased person at the time of their death (either kōgō or kōtaigō), and while it may not make sense from a Western point of view, that's how it's done in Eastern countries. Other examples are the Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi, etc. Keivan.f^Talk 20:16, 4 February 2023 (UTC)