Talk:List of people with the most children

Production of babies is 99.999999% women's work

Aside from the fact that it's much more evident who was the parent, it is far more impressive when women give birth (giving up months of their lives and literal pounds of flesh) than that men are said to have fathered children (by simply ejaculating 9 months prior). Even if the final count is greater for sperm donors, emperors, and mass-rapists, mothers deserve to be at the top of the article. Childbirth is one arena of life where placing women first is a no-brainer if we are to have any semblance of avoiding sexism in this encyclopedia. Brinerustle (talk) 21:49, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

"female" and "male"

I've removed male and female and replaced with mother and father. Perhaps there is some medical reason for not saying mother and father (perhaps that many children never know their biological fathers) and using the more general term which escapes me, but at the very least we should human female and human male if we want to be clear that these are offspring born to people. Many species can have millions of offspring. Or perhaps we should say bioloigcal mother and biological father. Brinerustle (talk) 09:09, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

@Brinerustle I think this would potentially be cause for debate on whether trans women would fall in mothers and trans men would fall in fathers, as a trans man who has 20 children would probably be more notable than a trans woman with 20 children. But lets address this when a trans person enters this list Immanuelle 💗 (please tag me) 22:48, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Quality of article

I have never seen a worse researched wiki article and that is saying something. Old editions of the UK version Guinness Book of Records had two UK families living in the 1980s with 22 children. 19 children today may be worth mentioning but not so long ago it was not so special. The whole impression given is a complete distortion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brian Boru IV (talk • contribs) 20:25, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Rather than simply ranting, it is up to you to improve the quality of articles in our encyclopaedia. It is not up to 'someone else' to do the work at your bidding! (And if you think this is one of the worst articles, you should try researching African politics ...) --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Nanu ram jogi just had his 22 child at age 94.

Instead of putting new information in the talk page, why not edit the article? Again, it’s not for others to do your work. --Wally Tharg (talk) 11:49, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

This is an awful article. Everyone under 20 children needs removing and it all needs sourcing. My Catholic next-door neighbours had 14 children – why aren’t they on the list? Because 14 children is totally unremarkable. If no-one can fix it, this should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.225.26 (talk) 17:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, it is up to you to improve the quality of articles in our encyclopaedia. Why not use your precious time constructively? --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I was looking up most children born to people who have lived a long time. I found Nina Billick Rust (1881-1993.) of Nebraska raised 12 children and a follow Nebraskan named Julia Tharnish (1897-2007) raised 14 children.

--188.110.250.140 (talk) 08:03, 8 March 2015 (UTC) Yes all under 20 should be removed: On of my Grandmothers had a total of 16 Children(much but not that much in her Time and rural culture) the First one died as an married adult before the last one was born.(And she had only one twins.)

Good grief ... I give up on this article.Wally Tharg (talk) 20:39, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

This article needs expansion

Specifically, mothers and couples are very incomplete. They should continue to be tagged as such until they have been expanded considerably, I would say that the lists should have at least ten each before they are considered somewhat closer to complete - NickGrayLOL (talk) 07:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The whole article seems incomplete, including the fathers section. Men with 20 children can't possibly be extraordinary in a historic setting. Off the top of my head, I can think of Mohammed bin Laden with over 50 children, and Ghengis Khan, yet they're not included here. This article needs more definite sources if there are any. 109.189.97.216 (talk) 16:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but it's hard to find sources. There's even one in my family tree: five wives, 29 children, in Western Finland ... but no sources beyond the old communion books. 80.222.145.74 (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Maria Theresa of Austria had 16 children with her husband Francis I. 24.130.16.160 (talk) 23:45, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I think this list should make some clear distinction between 'proven' and 'unproven' claims. that way all the obvious candidates like ghengis khan can be added, but with a label 'claim disputed' or something.

Fathering 20 children isn't out of the ordinary, especially not if there are several mothers involved. so i think these cases should be removed from the list Selena1981 (talk) 19:51, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

To be fair, editors have made an effort, for example by highlighting where there is uncertainty in the numbers fathered. The problem is that many of the data you seek are not known and can never be known. Far better record what is known, and record the uncertainty. --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The term illegitimate is inappropriate for an encyclopedia

The description of Desmond Hatchett's children as "illegitimate" is inappropriate as well as inconsistent. "Out-of-wedlock" is the term used for Zuma's children and should be used (if needed) for Hatchett as well.

It's also not so clear that the Mail is a good source of information, nor that Hatchett has set any records, even for Tennessee. The information is probably out of date as well, coming from 2009 (so he may be now closer to setting some records). My feeling is that there are probably many, many men in the US who have fathered 20 or more children, although perhaps few have had the chance to be written up in the Mail.

Finally, there do not seem to be any sperm donors on the list---they may not be legally fathers, but they are certainly biological fathers. Kirk Maxey would be one (fathered perhaps 400 children). --Son of eugene (talk) 06:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems reasonable – feel free to make the changes you propose. --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Mothers vs. couples

How can the "couples" section have larger totals that the "mothers" section? Each couple does include a mother, right?Originalname37 (Talk?) 15:14, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The mother section seems to have disappeared completely.Selena1981 (talk) 19:42, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Genghis Khan

Surely Genghis Khan should make it to this list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.233.139.17 (talk) 01:14, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, but the Ghengis Khan article is very vague on the number of children he sired; the improvement needs to start with research there and not here. --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:26, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Ingelheim and Dalberg

Count Franz Adolf Dietrich von Ingelheim and his wife Baroness Ursula von Dalberg had 22 children:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Adolf_Dietrich_von_Ingelheim — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.127.221.225 (talk) 12:14, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A good find – why not add them to the article? --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I eventually cracked and edited it in myself, since you couldn’t be bothered to do so. --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:26, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Couples and fathers, but no mothers?

I find it strange that there is a tables for the couples who've birthed the most children, and one for fathers with the most children, but no mothers. Are we to assume that while men may have multiple wives, women cannot have multiple partners, and are defined always in terms of their (one) husband? Interestingly, there are four women listed under "couples" for whom their partners are not named, who did not have partners (e.g. Nadya Suleman), or who had more than one (Juliana of Stolberg). I would suggest just renaming the section to "mothers." Information on who their husbands were can be mentioned in the notes. TheBlueCanoe 16:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

See discussion further up the page: there used to be a 'mothers' section, but it was changed. If you feel strongly about it, you can always revert a change – that's the way Wikipedia works! --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Looking for sources for a father in Woolwich

I’ve heard that there is a man in Woolwich, UK, who had fathered 40 children by 2009. Does anyone have a reputable source that could be quoted? --Wally Tharg (talk) 23:44, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The Families still intact,

Who has the lhe largest families where all members lived pass sixty years old. Documented Seven (7) members or more lived or living pass 60 years of age? Can you tell me how many family members/siblings have/or all still alive, were or are still in touch with each other, fair to excellent health all over the age of SIXTY YEARS. Please email me at rcrcarnes4@gmail.com

I would like to know. My family has such members. Eleven brothers and sisters, (from 60-72) Six boys and five girls all over sixty years old, seven by the same mother and father the other four by our father or mother. Are there more or is there a larger number out there? Please help me find out. We are so BLESSED.

Thank you, Ruthie --184.41.250.63 (talk) 17:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Elizabeth and Franz Stefanigo

They are my ancestors! We do not have citations for that sort of things in Serbia. I have their dates from church birth records and they death records in our family tree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miloradovan (talk • contribs) 18:29, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

That's not a reliable source. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 01:16, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Ed Houben

Ed Houben´s 102nd child was born this summer. http://www.spermaspender-samenspender4you.com/index.php?m=member_blog&p=view&id=5564&sid=217 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:6A:6D2E:BDB6:70BD:F229:E592:2C82 (talk) 21:38, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Threshold for inclusion

How are we defining a threshold for inclusion in this list? Without that, this is just a laundry list of semi-random facts. ^—Asterisk*^Splat→ 16:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

As is, the list includes many cases that realistically speaking are not notable, especially with the claim "This article lists people who are known to have parented the most children." in mind.

I strongly recommend that a cut-off be established, but lack the knowledge to give a realistic value. In a first estimate, I could imagine a good border lying somewhere between 20 and 30 for women and between 30 and 40 for men.

I note that having families containing more than a dozen children was nothing remarkable just a few generations ago, which makes it highly unlikely that e.g. "13 Chris and Caroline Turner" have any justification on this list, even with a restriction to known and somewhat verifiable cases.

(In addition, I suspect that there are very, very many unknown and entirely unverifiable cases of men who sired dozens of children e.g. as heads of polygamous families or as chieftains in a poor society in mostly pre-historic times.)

As an aside, this is a common problem with lists in Wikipedia: The first few entries verge on being unbelievable, the last few are so trivial that they might be worthy of mention when discussing e.g. a single city but are ridiculous when looking at the whole world.

80.226.24.5 (talk) 17:11, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the threshold on the low end is much too low. Before the age of contraception families with many children were common. A great-grandmother of mine had 13 children, another one 14 children and a great-great-grandmother of mine had 18 children. I think we should make the cut at 20 children. --Maxl (talk) 18:49, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Agree with you both and just took out all the women which fewer than 20 and all the men with fewer than 30. 184.147.117.34 (talk) 20:57, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I disagree, and would prefer threshold of 20 for both men and women, since entries for me such as J.S. Bach (20 children) really did add interest and value for the article. But I do agree that all entries should be verifiable (which is an entirely different argument). Wally Tharg (talk) 00:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

First we should define the parameters of this article as either notable persons who had large broods or simply every known verifiable example of a person having produced a minimum of an agreed upon number of children or maybe the 100 most prolific mothers and the 100 most prolific fathers. 20 seems low to me as I have at least three ancestors and one aunt who gave birth to that many or more and none are on the list nor do I think they ought to be except possibly one ancestor from the 19th century who gave birth to 27 children in New England. I would propose two separate articles to address each topic. One limited to famous examples of large broods and one limited to all known families over a certain size that can be reasonably verified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.191.251.196 (talk) 07:05, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Christine, Countess of Stolberg-Gedern

Born 14 August 1663 as Duchess of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, she married on on 14 May 1683, Christine married Louis Christian, Count of Stolberg-Gedern as his second wife. Between 1684 and 1705 she had 23 children in 19 pregnancies (including 4 sets of twins).

Please, take a look to her article and considered her in the list. Thanks a lot! Aldebaran69 (talk) 20:45, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Edmund Berry Godfrey's parents

This article claims that Edmund Godfrey's parents had 18 children. However, it also talks about a second wife so I'm not sure if they were all from the same couple: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Edmund_Berry_Godfrey — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.169.90.79 (talk) 17:56, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Does this list include children born in polygamous society?

I mean many kings, emperors, khans, etc had multiple wives and dozens of children, so why this list does not include those people? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.33.81.62 (talk) 05:54, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Brian and Nipa Cook

Under both the female and male sections Brian and Nipa Cook are listed as having five children. No citations. Plenty of people have five children. Who are these people? They should probably be removed.

Requested move 22 April 2015

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page not moved (non-admin closure) Kharkiv07 (T) 00:14, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

---

List of people with the most children → Lists of people by number of children – According to the lists only one person had most children. --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 17:29, 1 May 2015 (UTC) GregKaye 14:03, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. Why "lists" and not "list"? -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:19, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

only because the article is formed of two lists.

I think that this article can follow the same format as List of islands by size. Only the most notable islands/people need be mentioned. GregKaye 09:41, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. The current title is in line with other lists (List of longest rivers of Canada, not just the single longest river; List of largest hotels in the world, not just the single largest hotel). And it's not just a list of people that happens to be arranged by number of children. It's a list of just those people with 20 or more children. kennethaw88 • talk 21:44, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Genghis Khan surely is the all-time record holder

I see higher up in the talk page that there is debate about whether or not to include Genghis Khan. The problem is that we don't know for sure how many people he fathered. But estimates are okay, for the purposes of a list. There are some claims that he fathered 900 children. Others suggest 2,000 or more. I have never heard of an estimate of lower than 100. Even if we take the lowest estimate of 100 children, he still belongs on this list. In many ways, his absence degrades this list, and at a bare minimum there should be a footnote to say the reason why he is excluded.

There is a claim that this needs to be supported in the Genghis Khan article, and perhaps it does. After all, a list is just a reference to the articles that fall within the confines of that list. But perhaps discussion on how to go about listing it should start here. Mister Sneeze A Lot (talk) 04:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

@Emir of Wikipedia: @Mister Sneeze A Lot: The Genghis Khan genetic paper used old mutation rates which have since been revised, and also used abundance of this lineage in small ethnic groups to speak about the world in general. It was pure speculation, and already in the paper itself the authors admitted that the lineage is older. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii 20:33, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

@Sidoroff-B: Do you have any alternative citation to provide, or perhaps revised new mutation rates? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:14, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the claim that Genghis Khan had thousands of children was not well supported and probably apocryphal. If that's the case, surely it at least should be noted in the entry on Genghis Khan. I'm not going to Be Bold because I don't have a source, but if someone knows more about this it might be something to look into. 75.166.157.235 (talk) 21:13, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

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Quebec, Canada

Families of over 20 children in Quebec Canada are still relatively common, though becoming less so due to less influence of the Catholic Church. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.13.26.200 (talk) 21:39, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that the threshold may need to be increased Immanuelle 💗 (please tag me) 22:51, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Ernest and Hattie Stuntman 23 children

See the article for Ernest Van 'Pop' Stuntman. He and his wife, Hattie, were country music pioneers who had 23 children together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.127.55 (talk) 09:05, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Gravata case

Can we get a verification on a woman who made the list with 62 children and has been on this list for years until user - Psiĥedelisto (talk) has deleted the entry, and refused a revert : Article revision, also discussed here : User talk:Cltjames#Re: Gravata case possible hoax. The problem with citing a WP:RS (reliable source) issue is the source is available and was previously acceped, it also raises the same issue of a lot mothers and fathers on the top of the list from centuries ago with only newspaper articles to cite. Cltjames (talk) 16:47, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gravata case for a detailed discussion of the evidence for/against the case. The evidence for is a bunch of newspaper articles and medical journal anecdotes that all are Wikipedia:LINKSINACHAIN and thus primary sources. There is one secondary source: Bell, Julia (May 1933). "Plural Births with a New Pedigree". Biometrika. 25 (1/2): 110–120. In that article, they were unable to confirm the case and had a suggestion for further investigation, but did not follow through.

The Gravata case article has been deleted as a hoax. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 03:52, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Also note that Granata is probably the same case: the names were mangled while being repeated by different newspapers. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 04:48, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Cleaning up this article

I believe several entries here are likely original research or violate biography of living person policies. Additionally, I believe that the men category may have too low a threshold and as such contain many men who had large numbers of children but not enough to reasonably be considered notable. imo the men's list should have its threshold raised such that all the men in the list are either kings, prominent polygamists, cult leaders, or sperm donors who got media attention for their large number of children.

Raising it to 35 or 40 might be good. I feel the issue with it right now is that there were likely countless men with 25+ children who were not notable at all for it and likely are not in this article. Ideally the list should be at a threshold where we could conceivably have all men with more than that level of children listed. Wikipedia is not a high score list Immanuelle 💗 (please tag me) 22:43, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Nicola and Kevin Pridham

missing from the list, from Lincoln, Uk, 20 children all alive https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Patter+of+many+feet+as+baby+No+20+on+the+way.-a060550994 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.237.131.5 (talk) 10:48, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Anna Theresia Pleyl

Adding to the fact that this article is very badly researched, I delete Anna Theresia Pleyl from the list. Here it's claimed that she and her husband had 29 children while they had only eight. Her husband Martin Pleyl had eight children with his first wife Anna Theresia née Forster and eight more children with his second wife Maria Anna née Placho (see their birth entries in the church book of Ruppersdorf, Austria: https://data.matricula-online.eu/de/oesterreich/wien/ruppersthal/01%252C2%252C3-03/?pg=1)

First wedding of Martin Pleyl: 1. Franz (20.01.1745), 2. Joseph Thaddäus (7.3.1747), 3. Anna Theresia (15.1.1751), 4. Maria Anna (7.2.1751), 5. Maria Elisabeth (17.4.1753), 6. Johann Nepomuk (23.7.1754), 7. Maria Franziska (21.5.1756), 8. Ignatz Joseph (18.6.1757)

Second wedding of Martin Pleyl: 9. Matthias (2.12.1760), 10. Ferdinand (9.2.1763), 11. Joseph (23.2.1765), 12. Josepha (10.5.1767), 13. Cäcilia (21.1.1769), 14. Martin Joseph (12.3.1770), 15. Johann Michael (9.7.1771), 16. Aloysia (1.2.1773) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaori de Venustas (talk • contribs) 10:58, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

What about Duggars? I think they had 21. 19 and counting was the show.

Should be added to the list I would think 174.233.16.235 (talk) 23:22, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Asherah

Should a mythological figure really be included here? I would keep it to figures who are at least allegedly historical. Alternatively, if we are allowing totally mythological figures, then we have a number to add including but not limited to Priam (86), Gideon (70+), Zeus (109+), Poseidon (132+) KJack115 (talk) 02:26, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

@KJack115 What about Ramesses II? He was already on the list, that's why I decided to add Asherah. I feel with adequate sourcing, then anyone can be added. Cltjames (talk) 04:18, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Ramesses II is a historical figure outside of his (debated) appearance in the Hebrew Bible. Further, setting aside any debate about who was historically real or not, if we assume that Ramesses was real, then Ramesses was human. If we assume that Asherah was real, Asherah was a goddess, not a human being. KJack115 (talk) 20:43, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I concur, Asherah should not be on the list as she is a goddess, not a historical figure. Civciv5 (talk) 02:49, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

@Civciv5 the problem is, removing one entry from BC years and not another sets a bad precedence. This is especially the case when Asherah's own article lists 77 or 88 sons, it would remove the consistency. Cltjames (talk) 02:58, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

We don't remove it because its from the BC years, we remove it because Asherah is not human. I do think there's a worthwhile debate about how historical a figure needs to be to be included here, but we can remove Asherah without getting into that because she is a deity, not a person. If we do want to account for what Asherah's article states, that would be better suited to something like a "List of deities with the most children" and Zeus, Poseidon, and others could be put there alongside her. KJack115 (talk) 00:14, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Removing this entry has nothing to do the era, and everything to do with restricting this list to real people. Meters (talk) 09:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

OK, well, @KJack115:, you seem to have statistics for these historical figures, and the idea of a List of deities with the most children, or List of historical figures with the most children would be a good idea. Only I don't have any reliable sources for these people. I did make an addition of Ebraucus before, that was with Wiki source as a reference. Would anyone be able to help with sources for the creation of a new list for historical men and women? Cltjames (talk) 18:01, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

My inclination would be to leave the current page for at least semi-historical figures (I'd put Ebraucus in that box, though I don't know much about him) and make one new page for either deities or more generally legendary/mythological figures. I'm not certain if I have enough good examples for a whole list, yet, but maybe we can brainstorm. These pages may be a place to start: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Category:Children_by_mythological_figure. Otherwise, Asherah, Zeus, Poseidon, Chronos, Rhea, Echidna, Odin, Shiva are easy additions. Options we'd have to look into would include: Inanna, Astarte, Ishtar, Hera, Jupiter, Neptune maybe Nut&Geb, Hathor, Medb Lethderg, Tiamat, and really every other Olympic god because the Greek cultural concept of mythological heroes all being demi-gods means they will be over-represented on any list of this kind. Actually, the page on demigods could be a useful resource, too. That said, I'm not an expert on mythology and most of my personal knowledge is with Greek mythology so input from other people would be helpful here. El is also an obvious addition, but I don't know if that would upset anybody. I'll start compiling what I can reasonably find citations for. KJack115 (talk) 04:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)