Talk:James Caan (businessman)/Archives/2012

Former Name

Further to the recent editing of the James Caan page, I thought it might be a good idea to discuss his former name here. This first appeared on the page on 1 April 2008 as "Khan", but starting, as far as I can tell, in July 2009, a number of edits have changed this to "Khant" (his former name's also been changed to other things which are clearly vandalism, such as "Sercan Kobazoglu").

Well I've just done some checking on Google, and "James Caan" "Nazim Khan" currently returns 110 entries, including interviews with several national newspapers (the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph). "James Caan" "Nazim Khant", on the other hand, returns only 6, including the Wikipedia page itself, a couple of message boards, and a website called yourhiddenpotential.co.uk. This website has recently been added to the James Caan page as a link, but it's very obscure relative to the national newspapers, the article on James is quite poorly written, it was only posted on 15 August 2009 (at a time when the Wikipedia page said "Khant"), and the quote containing "Khant" is clearly taken from the Daily Mail interview, which says "Khan".

Therefore I think that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of James's former name being Khan, but of course I'd welcome other people's thoughts about this.

Stephen 86.151.52.236 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC).

Undoubtedly it's Khan, and Khant is an error. Rd232 ^talk 18:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

"I was called Nazim Khan, and it suddenly struck me that I could spell my surname in a different way" Rd232 ^talk 18:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

These edits are all being made by single user Macgrissom, who has been doing similar things on two other articles as well. Being basically a wikipedian outsider, I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with it. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 12:02, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, at least the RECENT ones seem to be. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 12:06, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/james-caan-a-dragon-in-his-den-1779143.htm is a reputable reference from a well known paper, why is this being removed?Macgrissom (talk) 12:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Well the link you posted here is 404, but the one on the actual article page works. Regardless, making a change like that, ESPECIALLY to a biography, needs a lot more than one ref when every other ref says otherwise. People, even reputable organizations, make mistakes. Typos creep into things. Regardless, every other link, including the one you removed to add that one, has the name spelled 'Khan'. More than likely 'Khant' is just a typo...especially as it wouldn't fit with his tale of it being an alternate spelling with the same pronounciation. -Graptor 208.102.243.30 (talk) 12:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I have three concerns about following the spelling in the Independent. Firstly, "Khant" is still in very much the minority of the sources; secondly, this doesn't come from a direct quote (as does, for example, the Daily Mail's "Khan"); and thirdly, and most worryingly, the Independent article only came out yesterday, after "Khant" had begun to make its regular appearances on this Wikipedia page.

Stephen 81.129.2.220 (talk) 19:32, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Further to comments made in recent edit summaries, in addition to my points above, I'm not sure how relevant currency is in this case, bearing in mind that, by definition, a FORMER name can't change.

Stephen 02:05, 2 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.2.220 (talk)

I've updated the article. Given the quote in the Name Change section, which comes from an article by Caan himself, we can safely conclude that all references to "Khant" are wrong. (We might also speculate that those references derive from this being wrong in the Wikipedia entry for a while, but that's beside the point.) Rd232 ^talk 11:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

New Version

I've changed the page completely. Comments welcome. Mainly more content and structuring. 81.144.198.18 (talk) 10:15, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you've done a great job! I've just made some minor tweaks, but please feel free to amend them as you see fit. In particular, I think the article needs to be consistent and refer to him either as "James" or "Caan" – I've opted for Caan, which perhaps sounds a bit more encyclopaedic, but I don't have a strong opinion on this.

Stephen 81.129.2.220 (talk) 19:53, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It's standard on Wikipedia to refer to people by their surnames, once their full name has been established (excepting some people who have titles of some sort). Rd232 ^talk 21:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

• It should be pointed out in the article that he started using the name "James Caan" as an homage to the actor James Caan, apparently over his father's disapproval. It's a rather unusual usage of Deed of change of name: as a Muslim, Khan's changing to the Jewish "Caan" must have raised more than a few eyebrows. He claimed it was "a great opener with potential clients" and was originally done as a joke, having printed business cards with the "'new' name on for fun."[1]--HidariMigi (talk) 20:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• It appears someone has made such a change (or I somehow missed it). On a similar note, it may be appropriate to note that he's had a controversial history of founding companies using "artificially English"-constructed business names. He made up "Alexander Mann" for his recruiting agency to sound like it had been around a long time: "...I came up with dynamic, smart, someone with integrity, who was well-educated, had a City background. Then I asked myself, what's this guy's name? And I came up with Alexander. I wanted a short one to go with it. I chose Mann because it was masculine, which fitted my executive market, but it also had echoes of other agencies, notably Manpower'.'"

Likewise, the equity firm "Hamilton Bradshaw" is an effectively fictionally named company-- there were no Hamilton or Bradshaw founders: "He had in his head “a vision of an old family firm in Mayfair with an oak-panelled office, something really traditional and I suppose, very English.” He thought of City gents in bowler hats and chose the names Mr Hamilton and Mr Bradshaw."[2]--HidariMigi (talk) 20:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Primary topic

Having the actor as anything but primary topic has been the subject of no discussion. The entrep. seems to have 1/10 the G-hits, and many of those may reflect such self-promotion as what sounds like a reality show. Also it may be relevant that he chose not just to respell the (well-known and honored) name "Khan", but to chose the spelling and new (apparently arbitrary -- James/Jacob and Nadim seem to show no relationship) given name that would cause most confusion and evoke perhaps the most famous remotely related contemporary -- granted, unfairly improving his notability does not detract from his notability in our eyes, but it seems likely that he has created some apparent notability (e.g. GHits created by our and others' disambiguations of the name) exceeding his real notability.
I don't want to take the time to do the two moves that will put the actor back as the primary topic tonite, but the closest thing to discussion has been the unsigned IP's "What about James Caan, entrepreneur. Wikipedia doesnt seem to have a page on him. www.jamescaan.co.uk " comment, and the hundreds of lks to the actor should neither be left as lks to the Dab, nor changed without sound discussion. I think reverting the move pending further discussion is fully justified.
--Jerzy•t 03:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Jerzy. I've requested the undo of this move. --Tesscass (talk) 18:29, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I don't necessarily oppose the suggested move, but it worth pointing out that James Caan (entrepreneur) is well known in the UK and other countries like New Zealand which broadcast the BBC's Dragon's Den programme. YeshuaDavid • Talk • 18:36, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

birthday

how can we change the bday in the info-box which doesn't match the text. edit mode doesn't seem to workEugene-elgato (talk) 18:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The hatnote

One reason I restored it is because Cann specifically picked that name to encourage confusion with the actor. It's not as if they just both happened to wind up with the same name. Gigs (talk) 18:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate that, but please see WP:NAMB, the argument presented there is quite compelling against it.--Muhandes (talk) 19:34, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that NAMB is particularly applicable in this case, since both are involved in entertainment, one specifically choose to take the name of the other, and we aren't linking to a disambiguation page like in the example there, but rather linking to the other relevant article. There isn't a disambiguation page in this case, which in my mind makes two-way hatnotes more appropriate. It's not a clear cut call, I agree, but I see the value in having it and little downside. Gigs (talk) 22:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I was not saying it is applicable, I was saying the argument is: "the hatnote is inappropriate because a reader following links within Wikipedia or using Wikipedia's own search engine would not have ended up at tree (set theory) if they were looking for other types of trees, as tree does not redirect there." Same here - a reader following links within Wikipedia or using Wikipedia's own search engine would not have ended up at James Caan (entrepreneur) if they were looking for James Caan, as James Caan does not redirect there. --Muhandes (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Blatantly promotional, uncited, unbalanced, unencyclopedic and generally a mess

This article is a shambles and a real embarrassment to WP. I have taken some small steps towards improving it but a great deal more work is still required. Rangoon11 (talk) 12:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your work. Feel free to continue editing. I've done a few small things myself, but it's hard to keep up. Gigs (talk) 17:30, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree..too much irrelevant information, seems more like a sale pitch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.60.30.169 (talk) 21:15, 7 July 2011 (UTC)