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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. While there is a consensus to move in general, there is no consensus as to where to be moved. Editors generally opposed the current title as POV and preferred either of the options discussed, Execution of the Romanov family or Killing of the Romanov family. The former was cited as being the WP:COMMONNAME while the latter was argued to be the least POV option. Much of the support for these two proposals was overlapping, though there were also editors who supported one and opposed the other, generally due to POV concerns. Due to the split in support, neither proposed title was able to have a sufficient consensus of editors form in favor of it. Due to the overall consensus to move, a WP:NOTCURRENT move to either title could have been appropriate; however due to the current title's prevalence in sources as referenced in the discussion I felt that this wasn't warranted and would only cause further issues. In short, to close this discussion as anything other than "no consensus" would be a WP:BARTENDER close at best and a WP:SUPERVOTE at worst. As with any other close of this nature, there is no prejudice towards opening a new discussion at any time. (closed by non-admin page mover) estar8806 (talk) ★ 14:52, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Murder of the Romanov family → Execution of the Romanov familyExecution of the Romanov family – The use of the word "murder" appears to indicate a POV. A huge number of reliable sources use the word "execution". The former title should be restored. Wisher08 (talk) 14:03, 9 August 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 09:59, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support our naming conventions state that "murder" should be used only when there is a conviction. The same conventions recommend using "execution" for a state-sanctioned killing. Paprikaiser (talk) 18:11, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The piped link above is an essay, not a consensus-agreed naming convention. Were the Bolsheviks an organized state at the time? I see that we currently have Killing of Muammar Gaddafi and Death of Benito Mussolini. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:01, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would support killing too. Paprikaiser (talk) 19:35, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BarrelProof The Bolsheviks were the established political power in the area, if only for a short time period, wheras those examples have the killing done by soldiers from groups that didn't control the area at the moment the event happened. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, it seems clear that we should move this away from "Murder of". I think something called a murder should be more like an ordinary crime that is clearly illegal under an established legal framework and government structure that is in force at the time it occurs. The current use of "murder" seems like some sort of POV expression of condemnation rather than an objective description of the circumstances and manner. I currently would lean toward "Killing of" rather than "Execution of", since the killing was kept secret and was seemingly extrajudicial and the degree of authorization is not very clear. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:26, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it is murder and should not be changed as it is a crime and overall an atrocity. 2A00:23C7:F802:8901:2441:A94C:E742:CAA4 (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. An above thread which started in 2020 and continued into 2023 (Talk:Murder of the Romanov family#Execution of the Romanov family Title Change and Content Review) discusses the meaning of "Execution" in the context of this specific historical milestone. A subsequent RM (Talk:Murder of the Romanov family#Requested move 1 January 2023), which attracted nine participants, proposed "Killing" but the ultimate consensus was that "Murder" is the term which most accurately and appropriately describes the event. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:09, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Execution is a broad term, state authorised killings are executions, "murder" on the other hand is a POV title that does not reflect reality in any way. The executioners did not kill out of their own, they were told to. Koshuri ^(あ!) 03:56, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The support votes above are misinformed. We don't say millions of Jews were executed in the Second World War because their deaths were state-sanctioned and the executioners were only doing it because they were told to. Such comments are grossly offensive and ignorant. Page moves should not be made on such grounds. DrKay (talk) 06:18, 10 August 2025 (UTC) I'm fine with killing. DrKay (talk) 05:53, 11 August 2025 (UTC) Struck; per the #Discussion section below, killing is the least common of the alternatives. Murder is the commonest word used. DrKay (talk) 12:49, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your analogy is baseless. This was not a genocide but an execution, not all executions require trials and convictions. The article was titled as "Execution of the Romanov family" with previous RMs failing for a long time before being moved to this POV title. Koshuri ^(あ!) 11:06, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DrKay In this case, the executioners were directly given orders by the government(the Urals Soviet or Sovnarkom, we don't know which one obviously), whereas Nazi soldiers did not need authorization from the regional or central government to kill any "undesireables". Carbohydrates53 (talk) 16:26, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It posted it twice for some reason, sorry. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 16:29, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DrKay In this case, the executioners were directly given orders by the government(the Urals Soviet or Sovnarkom, we don't know which one obviously), whereas Nazi soldiers did not need authorization from the regional or central government to kill any "undesireables". Carbohydrates53 (talk) 16:28, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom. This is an entirely valid option and is in line with the whole article. ScriptKKiddie (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Move to Killing of the Romanov family to avoid having to pick a side in the title, since while you can dispute whether they were murdered or executed you can't dispute they were killed. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:12, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Move to Killing of the Romanov family, which is both accurate and neutral. 162 etc. (talk) 05:23, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Wisher08 Support: Whether or not Sovnarkom ordered the actions, it was also approved by the local Soviet, which is enough to call it an execution. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 05:27, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Participants in the previous two RM discussions on this topic Randy Kryn, JackofOz, Mzajac, BilledMammal, Buidhe, Nug, SmokeyJoe, Goszei, Rreagan007, Mozzie, Dunutubble, Blindlynx, Necrothesp, Calidum, Iskandar323, IJBall and Elme12 have been pinged. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 17:48, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The general rule is that we don't use "murder" without a murder conviction. I see no reason not to follow this general guideline, especially since "killing" or "execution" are more common in sources. In short move back (t · c) buidhe 17:55, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Move to Killing of the Romanov family both 'murder' and 'execution' are too POVy—blindlynx 18:10, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support this alternative proposal.

  TreeReader (talk) 00:44, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Move to Killing of the Romanov family, per the neutrality arguments above. — Goszei (talk) 19:05, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support multiple options, with a strong preference for execution. Reject the naming convention, in particular the flowchart, as giving too much weight to pseudo-legalese definitions, insufficient weight to standard word meanings, and insufficient weight to policy WP:UCRN that says to follow sources.

  To score some opinions, I’ll give a score out of ten:

  10/10 “execution”. They were prisoners executed by the captors. And arguing legalese in a time of revolution is stupid and historical revisionism.

  6/10 “murder”. Murder implies and requires intent to criminally and immorally kill, which is true, but murder also implies a close degree of personal motive, which is lacking in this case. A massacre might be criminal, immoral, intentional, but one does not pick out individual massacred victims and describe the death as murder. Here, the shooters were soldiers, each acting under orders, not from personal malice to the victims, especially not the children.

  4/10 “killing”. It is not neutral, but conveys a false sense of neutrality. There is no doubt that it was not an accident, or careless food poisoning. It was NOT just a killing. It was something else. It was a politically motivated, deliberate execution of prisoners.

  SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  There are many sources, but I started with https://www.discovermagazine.com/how-scientists-identified-the-remains-of-the-romanovs-43547, the first source to the section House of Romanov#Executions, which includes “ More than 60 years earlier, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne while under pressure from the Red Army, an army created in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks placed the family under house arrest, and then suddenly executed them in 1918 — an event that toppled Russia's last imperial dynasty.” Executed. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:21, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Wikipedia should not be at odds with reliable secondary sources. Wikipedians should not be inventing pseudo-legalese rules that conflict with source use. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:23, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  There are plenty of sources that say murder. Look at the list of references: 7 say murder in the title, 4 say execute. DrKay (talk) 06:49, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This article is reference bombed, and so I went to other articles looking for more prominent references. Ok, doing this turns my results subjective not objective. I prefer Execute. Murder is acceptable. Killing ignores the nature of what happened, it was not an accident or heat of the moment. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:52, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It was murder.

  It was an execution. Not “formal”. Captors killing prisoners makes an execution. The political aspect makes it an execution.

  “Killing” is mealy mouthed. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:05, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  “Killing of the Romanov family” is not readily found in any source. It would amount to a Wikipedia invention. For this reason alone, it should be utterly rejected. Anyone who supports it should point to its usage in reliable sources. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:44, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Generally regarded as murder, whether there were convictions or not. Referred to as such in many reliable sources. We have to make exceptions to guidelines sometimes in the name of common sense. The crimes of Jack the Ripper, for example, were clearly murders. As were the crimes of the Holocaust (in which the perpetrators were also ordered to do it, the relevant authority authorised it and the victims were prisoners killed by captors, all as here - yet the lead of our article says the victims were murdered). In this case, a family was gunned down in cold blood. This was mass murder by any definition of the term. Hardly justifiable homicide! An execution surely requires a trial, so how is "murder" POV but "execution" is not? Even "killings" is mealy mouthed. They were murdered. Let's not beat about the bush over this. If we change this then we should change the language of all our articles about the Holocaust, for instance. Because they all (rightly) refer to murder. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:16, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  How about we don't compare a bunch of brutal autocrats to Holocaust victims—blindlynx 14:51, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  How about we don't describe five young princes and princesses and a group of servants as "a bunch of brutal autocrats" and suggest for political reasons that even the murder of their parents was legitimate (since neither were "brutal autocrats")! Murder is murder. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:18, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Necrothesp Summary execution exists. Also, mentioning Jack the Ripper is completely irrelevant, and the Holocaust example is disrespectful and inaccurate. In this case, there were direct orders from the government. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 17:15, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Summary execution is murder. It is no way disrespectful, as I have clearly stated that Holocaust victims were murdered. What is disrespectful is the mealy mouthed description of any murder as an "execution" or "killing". And my comparison with Jack the Ripper was intended to point out that, contrary to what was claimed above, we do not need a conviction (or even an identification of the murderer) for a murder to be a murder. In this case, there were direct orders from the government. What, like the Holocaust, you mean? I'm still failing to see why one is murder and the other is not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:21, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Necrothesp I hope you would agree that the Holocaust is significantly worse, so it's not comparable. Also, the order to execute the romanovs was only for them, whereas during the Holocaust, killing Jewish people was legalized so there was no need for any such order. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 16:36, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Nobody is saying either is worse or better or comparing them (although I would point out that the Romanovs and their servants were also killed because of who they were, not what they had done). I am merely saying that murder is murder. You simply cannot claim that one state-sanctioned killing (without a fair trial) is murder while another is not. That is entirely POV. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:40, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Necrothesp The page on Mussolini's death calls it a summary execution despite the fact that there was no trial. Also, the servants were included in the order by the Urals Soviet as well. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 16:55, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That was also a murder, of course. We should not decide on terminology depending on who the victim was and whether we think they deserved it or not. That is utterly POV. You seem to be suggesting that the murder of the servants was legitimate because it was authorised by a totalitarian regime. Bizarre! I refer you to my previous comments. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:00, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per Necrothesp and others. The event was a mass murder, not a formal execution or whatever name people later came up with. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:56, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - there are no POV issues using "murder" for killing of 11 people, including children, without any trial. The fact that afterwards Soviet government engaged in disinformation and coverup about events is very telling. Also, as pointed out by Necrothesp, it is a well established practice to use "murder" for state sanctioned killings in Holocaust articles.--Staberinde (talk) 13:49, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Death, WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, WikiProject Royalty and Nobility, WikiProject Genealogy, WikiProject Russia, and WikiProject European history have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 09:59, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support moving to "Execution of the Romanov family". I don't think anyone doubts that it was an execution, and the orders for it were issued by the regional soviet before they were implemented by the executioners. In which world it does not meet the definition of "execution"? The article title having "Killing" would be inaccurate, because their demise was not spontaneous, while "Murder" is a clear cut POV. Wareon (talk) 12:16, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • So, what you're saying is that no state-sanctioned killings should be described as murder because that's POV? I have pointed out above why that is ludicrous. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:22, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • There seem to be different meanings of the word murder. I generally tend toward considering the word to have a particular meaning as a crime that someone is convicted of in the realm of criminal law. Others seem to emphasize more the informal usage to refer to any killing that is considered highly inappropriate (perhaps more along the lines of sinfulness or disapproval). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:57, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • Whilst I would normally agree, I think unsolved murders should still be characterised as murders. Jack the Ripper clearly did not kill his victims by accident and I think it would be very odd indeed to characterise his crimes as anything other than murders. And, by extension, state-sanctioned murder is still murder. The victors, of course, write the histories, and in this instance the Soviet state was the "victor" for many decades after this crime was committed. But it's no less a murder because of that. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:06, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

        @Necrothesp The other option is that Lenin's cabinet ordered it, which is even more official, no? Unless there's a secret third option. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 17:59, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

        Ah, so it's not murder if a brutal dictator and/or his flunkies order it? Obviously Hitler's SS and Stalin's NKVD never actually murdered anyone then. Just legitimate executions ordered by the relevant authority at the time. Thanks for clearing that up. -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

        I believe that's three times now that you have explicitly equated execution with "legitimate". I don't think that's a valid interpretation. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:23, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

        No, what I'm doing is pointing out that you can't just claim something isn't murder because it's state-sanctioned or you start getting into very dodgy territory. Any state-sanctioned killing can be called an execution by those who carry it out. Yes, there is another use of the term "execution" (i.e. a contract killing or assassination), but that is still usually regarded as murder. -- Necrothesp (talk) 21:33, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

        @Necrothesp A crime is just something that's against the law, so it's not murder in the legal sense because it was state sanctioned. If you define murder as killing people with no caveats, then it's a different case. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 21:00, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

        And once again I refer you back to the crimes of the Nazis. Not against the law under the laws pertaining at the time and place. Still murder in anyone's book. You just can't be inconsistent like this or it starts to look like POV (fascists killing people they claim to be enemies bad, communists killing people they claim to be enemies not so bad). Either both are murder or neither is murder. I've made it very obvious that I hold with the former. -- Necrothesp (talk) 21:33, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

        What I find most disturbing is how casually you are equating this execution of the family with holocaust. Making such a false equivalence is Holocaust trivialization, thus you are engaging in an inappropriate behavior. Auto5656 (talk) 02:07, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

        What utter rubbish. How am I in any way trivialising the Holocaust? Maybe you should actually read what I have written and the article you have cited. The Wiesel Commission defined trivialization as the abusive use of comparisons with the aim of minimizing the Holocaust and banalizing its atrocities. I have very clearly not done that in any way. Nor would I dream of doing so. In fact, I have done exactly the opposite. Claiming I am doing so is no more than stooping to a new low in an attempt to shut down an opinion with which you do not agree. Which is most certainly inapppropriate behaviour. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:47, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. I find it deeply disturbing that anyone would characterise the gunning down of a group of prisoners in cold blood as anything other than murder and claim it was POV to suggest otherwise because it was "state-sanctioned" by a brutal, totalitarian regime. There are many examples on Wikipedia where similar killings have been described as what they clearly were: murders. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:32, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. This may be a relevant quote from The Many Deaths of Tsar Nicholas II: Relics, Remains and the Romanovs (2007): "In Western academic history, the way in which the 'mini-narrative' of the Romanov's 'execution' – or their 'murder': the choice of the word is vital – is told depends upon how the historian chooses to present the broader narrative of the Russian Revolution" (p. 48). I guess we can use "murder" if it can be demonstrated that most RS prefer that term. Mellk (talk) 17:11, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This Google ngram shows that “killing” is unused, “murder” is common, and “execution” has taken the lead.

  To my reading of many sources, starting with Wikipedia references to this topic, although moreso in other articles than this reference bombed article, is that reliable sources taking a distant historical perspective use “execution”. “Murder” is used more in the up close and personal perspective. Wikipedia should prefer the distant historical perspective. This is not to say that the illegal executions were not murders. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per SmokeyJoe. "Execution" is the most sensible option here. Auto5656 (talk) 02:08, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support the word "execution" in the title as per WP:COMMONNAME. I oppose the current title as it is POV. Segaton (talk) 14:29, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• As Google ngrams demonstrates, "murder" is more common than "execution". This claim that execution is the common name is bogus and disproven. DrKay (talk) 17:37, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We are not obligated to pick whatever term is most popular. We are allowed to use descriptive titles and to consider whether a title is POV or not. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:51, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“the common name”? You appear to think that a COMMONNAME is singular. It is not. Read the policy section. Both “Murder” and “Execution” satisfy with COMMONNAME, better written “Use commonly recognizable names”.

On your ngram, you use “the Romanovs” not “Romanov family” and get a difference preference. Can you justify why use a phrase different to the article title?

On the criticism that Murder is POV, I don’t think that is a reasonable criticism, as the POV is evident in reliable sources. Hiding from POV for the sake of neutrality over following sources is what we call “mealy mouthed”. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:59, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - The most common title is "Execution of the Romanov family" in the sources, see [7]. Agletarang (talk) 16:14, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. "Murder" is more commonly used in Google Scholar, Google Books, and books published by university presses. Arguments that appeal to legal matters and the murder being ordered are not convincing. If anything, the page should be moved to "Murder of the Romanovs". For evidence, see below. Kelob2678 (talk) 20:42, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. Since I mentioned in my "Oppose" vote, above, the (now archived) 2020 thread regarding the meaning of "execution" (Talk:Murder of the Romanov family/Archive 1#Execution of the Romanov family Title Change and Content Review), a few examples of other events that do not use "execution" may be useful.

In 1940, More than two decades after the Murder of the Romanov family, about 22,000 Polish civilians and prisoners of war were shot on Stalin's orders in what is known as the Katyn massacre, not "Katyn executions".

Also, since there were some objections to Holocaust comparison with regard to use of "murder" / "execution" terminology, non-Holocaust related mass murders committed by Germany during World War II include the Lidice massacre, the Marzabotto massacre or the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre. Among the 58 entries under Category:Massacres committed by Nazi Germany, only two use the term "execution" — 1 May 1944 Kaisariani executions and Pančevo executions — which may or may not be common names among English-language historians (Greek Wikipedia header uses simply "200 of Kaisariani", while Serbian and Serbo-Croatian Wikipedias use the header "Massacre in Pancevo".

The more recent Srebrenica massacre is also not referenced as an "execution" although it was a mass shooting by army units under orders of its commanding general.

Ultimately, since "execution" is not the overwhelmingly WP:COMMONNAME used by reliable sources, English Wikipedia should not use the term "execution" which can be seen as legitimizing the event and giving it legal status. The recent nomination Death of Benito Mussolini → Execution of Benito Mussolini at Talk:Death of Benito Mussolini#Requested move 25 May 2025 was likewise unsuccessful. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 23:44, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support The term murder does not fully describe what happened because this was about removing a head of state and not some crime of passion, there was no other reason for it to have happened. If the state carried out these killings, then it is an execution. If it was not carried out by the state, then the perpetrators were assassins and it was an assassination. I note that political bias has come into play; WP should maintain a WP:NPOV regardless of what a Google search brings up. 14.2.199.62 (talk) 03:46, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  This strikes me as a good point. The word murder doesn't seem to adequately characterize a mass killing conducted by a controlling political group that was performed to finalize the end of the previous governmental regime and prevent any lingering loyalty to its ruling power. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:16, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per the extensive analysis of reliable sources by Kelob2678, 'execution' is not the common name. Claims that 'murder' is POV fall flat when the proposed title is as POV as the current one. In the absence of good reasons to move, default to the stuatus quo. Celia Homeford (talk) 07:47, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Celia Homeford If execution is equally as POV as murder, then why not move the page to "Killing of the Romanovs" Carbohydrates53 (talk) 19:51, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Because “killing” is mealy mouthed. These is an accepted POV. It was murder. It was an execution. It was no accident, but was planned, and illegal. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:58, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "Killing of ..." certainly does not imply a death by accident. This seems to be the third time you've suggested here that it does. As far as I know, no one would interpret such a title that way. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:40, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @SmokeyJoe The Mussolini article uses the word "death", which is significantly more euphemistic, as the name alone doesn't tell you that he was killed. In contrast, using "killing" conveys much more information. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 18:01, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Reliable secondary sources mostly describe this as murder rather than execution. Those that call it execution are politically controlled, doubtfully reliable on this point, and in a minority. Andrewa (talk) 11:08, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  But see in discussion below for alternate suggestion of assassination. Andrewa (talk) 21:55, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Where you reveal an openness to abandoning reliable secondary source use?

  You assert that Emily Le Beau Lucchesi writing this for Discover Magazine, is “politically controlled”? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:43, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - The current title is WP:POVNAME, opinionated and inaccurate. The difference in search results for "murder" vs "execution" isn't huge. Most sources use " executed/execution of" to describe their death, including even those that refer to it as "murder" initially. "Execution" is not only neutral but also the only term that can be used to define this event accurately. Azuredivay (talk) 19:36, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - For a neutral title without POV. Sources cite that they were executed so prefer to be "Execution" over other alternative as it is prevalent in the sources and academics describe it as an execution.Pranesh Ravikumar (talk) 12:05, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

During this and previous RMs, people used either "Murder/Execution/Killing of the Romanovs/family" as search terms for gauging popularity. I will analyze all six variants.

Google Scholar

	Romanovs	Romanov family	Total
Murder	120	46	166
Execution	50	70	120
Killing	13	8	21

Google Books

	Romanovs	Romanov family	Total
Murder	107	64	171
Execution	51	59	110
Killing	23	5	28

In Google Ngram, "murder of the Romanovs" is the most popular variant for most of the years (case-sensitive to avoid clutter).

WP:COMMONNAME specifies that Wikipedia must follow reliable sources. In this area, university presses are among the highest quality. There are not that many of them, and they can be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. To do this, I appended "inpublisher:University inpublisher:Press" to the Google Books search term. The green color is for those I deem strong enough to support the name, yellow is in between, and red are those that should be discarded.

Murder

Title	Author	Publisher	Year	Notes
of the Romanovs
A Disastrous Matter The Polish Question in the Russian Political Thought and Discourse of the Great Reform Age 1856–1866	Henryk Głębocki	Jagiellonian University Press	2016	Refers to a different (hypothetical) murder
The Life and Times of Andrei Zhdanov, 1896-1948	Kees Boterbloem	McGill-Queen's University Press	2004
Rider Haggard and the Fiction of Empire A Critical Study of British Imperial Fiction	Wendy Katz	Cambridge University Press	2010
Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent Faith and Power in the New Russia	John&Carrol Garrard	Princeton University Press	2008
Legacy of Blood Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets	Elissa Bemporad	Oxford University Press	2019
The Truth of the Russian Revolution The Memoirs of the Tsar's Chief of Security and His Wife	Globachev	State University of New York Press	2017	Memoirs
Royals and the Reich The Princes Von Hessen in Nazi Germany	Jonathan Petropoulos	Oxford University Press	2008
Frontier of Loyalty Political Exiles in the Age of the Nation-State	Yossi Shain	University of Michigan Press	2010	Mentioned as the title of a cited work
The Shadow of the Empress Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy	Larry Wolff	Stanford University Press	2023
An American Diplomat in Bolshevik Russia	Lorraine M. Lees, William S. Rodner (editors)	University of Wisconsin Press	2014	In the memoirs, the author used "execution," but the footnote used "murder"
Russia and Eastern Europe, 1789-1985 A Bibliographical Guide	Raymond Pearson	Manchester University Press	1989	Mentioned as the title of a cited work
Richard Halliburton and the Voyage of the Sea Dragon	Gerald&Gerry Max	University of Tennessee Press	2023	Mentioned as the title of a cited work
Between Heaven and Russia Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia	Sarah Riccardi-Swartz	Fordham University Press	2022
Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009	Cornelis A. van Minnen et al.	State University of New York Press	2009
Overtaken by the Night One Russian's Journey Through Peace, War, Revolution, and Terror	Richard G. Robbins	University of Pittsburgh Press	2018
History's Greatest Heist The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks	Sean McMeekin	Yale University Press	2008
Was Revolution Inevitable? Turning Points of the Russian Revolution	Tony Brenton	Oxford University Press	2017
Crown, Cloak, and Dagger The British Monarchy and Secret Intelligence from Victoria to Elizabeth II	Richard J. Aldrich, Rory Cormac	Georgetown University Press	2023	Only limited preview is available, but I suppose it was mentioned as the title of a cited work
Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory Essays from the Sawyer Seminar	Abby Smith	University of Michigan Press	2007	This is an essay, which I think is acceptable
Nicholas II Last of the Tsars	Marc Ferro	Oxford University Press	2008
The Allies and the Russian Revolution From the Fall of the Monarchy to the Peace of Brest-Litovsk	Robert D. Warth	Duke University Press	1954	Mentioned as the title of a cited work
斯大林：權力的悖論（1878-1928）（上下冊合售）	Stephen Kotkin	?	2022	Mentioned as the title of a cited work
Risky Writing Self-disclosure and Self-transformation in the Classroom	Jeffrey Berman	University of Massachusetts Press	2001	Not a historical work
German Literature The Major Figures in Context	Henry Hatfield	Indiana University Press	2008	Not a historical work
of the Romanov family
Legacy of Blood Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets	Elissa Bemporad	Oxford University Press	2019	Already mentioned
Democracy and Solidarity On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis	James Davison Hunter	Yale University Press	2024
God's Eye Aerial Photography and the Katyn Forest Massacre	Frank Fox	West Chester University Press	1999
Guide to the Collections in the Hoover Institution Archives Relating to Imperial Russia, the Russian Revolutions and Civil War, and the First Emigration	Carol A. Leadenham	Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University	1986	No preview is available, and it is likely not relevant

Execution

Title	Author	Publisher	Year	Notes
of the Romanovs
Russia Experiment with a People	Robert Service	Harvard University Press	2003	Only a limited preview is available, but based on the context, I think this is fine
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Supreme Commander of the Russian Army	Paul Robinson	Cornell University Press	2014	Refers to those Romanovs that were in Crimea
For King and Country The British Monarchy and the First World War	Heather Jones	Cambridge University Press	2021
Children of the Gulag	Cathy A. Frierson, Semen Samuilovich Vilenskii	Yale University Press	2010
A/AS Level History for AQA Tsarist and Communist Russia, 1855-1964 Student Book	Hannah Dalton	Cambridge University Press	2015	Not a historical work
An Unholy Rebellion, Killing the Gods Political Ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Andean Huarochiri Manuscript	Sharonah Esther Fredrick	University of Nebraska Press	2024
Mythmaking in the New Russia Politics and Memory in the Yeltsin Era	Kathleen E. Smith	Cornell University Press	2018	Nicholas II ... had been murdered ... the Bolsheviks concealed the story of the execution of the Romanovs
The Adventures of a Cello Revised Edition, with a New Epilogue	Carlos Prieto	University of Texas Press	2018	The author is a conductor writing about his life
Political Murder From Tyrannicide to Terrorism	Franklin L. Ford	Harvard University Press	1987	Appears in a quote from Trotsky
Diary in Exile, 1935	Leon Trotsky	Harvard University Press	1958	Trotsky
Hilda Hurricane A Novel	Roberto Drummond	University of Texas Press	2011	A novel, not an academic work
Nicholas II Last of the Tsars	Marc Ferro	Oxford University Press	2008	The same work also uses "murder"
The independence of Elmer Rice	Robert Hogan	Southern Illinois University Press	1965	An old work by a literature professor
of the Romanov family
Stalin Passage to Revolution	Ronald Grigor Suny	Princeton University Press	2022
Ritual Murder in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Beyond New Histories of an Old Accusation	Eugene M. Avrutin et al.	Indiana University Press	2017	Appears as a quote from antisemites
The Princeton Anthology of Writing Favorite Pieces by the Ferris/McGraw Writers at Princeton University	John McPhee, Carol Rigolot	Princeton University Press	2001
of Blood Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets	Elissa Bemporad	Oxford University Press	2019	Appears as a quote from antisemites
The Phoenix Song	John Sinclair	Victoria University Press	2013	Historical fiction
The Defiant Life of Vera Figner Surviving the Russian Revolution	Lynne Ann Hartnett	Indiana University Press	2014
Understanding Forensic DNA	Suzanne Bell, John M. Butler	Cambridge University Press	2022	Mentioned as the title of a cited work
Theatre History Studies Volumes 16-17	?	University of North Dakota Press	1996	Limited preview available, but I believe this is fine

Killing

Title	Author	Publisher	Year	Notes
of the Romanovs
Roads to Dystopia, Sociological Essay on the Post Modern Condition (c)	Stanford M. Lyman	University of Arkansas Press	2001
Lenin, a Political Life: The iron ring	Robert Service	Indiana University Press	1995
of the Romanov family
The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought	Caryl Emerson et al.	OUP Oxford	2020

Summary

	Murder	Execution	Killing
Green	16	10	3
Yellow	2	3	0
Red	10	8	0
Total	28	21	3

While I don't personally believe legal matters should play a role in deciding the title for the page, WP:DEATHS, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge Dictionary, and some editors above require this issue to be considered. Firstly, from the Russian perspective of that time, as mentioned previously, the Russian Republic and those elected into the Russian Constituent Assembly represented the legitimate government, not the Bolsheviks. Secondly, since the English Wikipedia is located in the USA, it can be expected to follow US law (see this issue with copyright), but the US government did not recognize the Bolsheviks until 1933. Additionally, the only body that can realistically declare this a murder is the contemporary Russian judicial system, but I don't think the English Wikipedia should rely on it in any way.

Another argument some editors mentioned is a distinction between killing someone on order and willful murder. I don't think it is that easy to differentiate the two during the Russian Civil War. Firstly, the Tsar was widely unpopular, to the extent that even monarchists (including those influential within the White Movement) needed to downplay their views to gain any public support. Secondly, Russia had already faced an upsurge of violence during the 1905 revolution, which was pretty active in the Yekaterinburg region, without any significant Bolshevik backing. Thirdly, and I believe this is the most important point, the war was mainly fought on ideological grounds, and those who joined the Reds did so because they actually backed the cause. This article lists nine people as murderers; among them, seven have biographies on Wikipedia. Four of them joined the Bolsheviks before 1917, one was already practicing violent revolutionary activity before that time (Yermakov), and two joined in 1917 (Medvedev and Vaganov). It is hard to portray these people as opportunists or just order-followers. Kelob2678 (talk) 20:42, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Kelob2678 The Constituent Assembly was already dissolved at that point. Also, why US law be considered when it happened in Russia. The point of bringing up the order is not to imply that those people were disinterested 3rd parties, but more to prove that it did meet the criteria of official authorization. For example, if an executioner personally disliked someone they executed, it doesn't stop being an execution. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 23:05, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that the Bolsheviks lacked the jurisdiction to issue orders. Disbanding a democratically elected body gave them no more right to execute someone than robbery provides property rights. This is further evidenced by the non-recognition of their authority by foreign states, such as the USA.

The second part referenced the claim that murder also implies a close degree of personal motive. I claimed that such a personal motive was likely present. Kelob2678 (talk) 19:13, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Execution does not require jurisdiction. Murder implies personal motive, but doesn’t require it. There is evidence of personal motive against Nicholas, with executioners eager to shoot him personally, but I haven’t seen an account suggesting personal motive against the children. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:05, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Out of all the green sources you cited for the "murder", many of them also describe this event as an execution. Scholarly opinion is that this was an execution , just googling prospective title is not enough. We should analyse what the sources say.

• [8] "The second chapter ( " Rise of a Bolshevik Chieftain " ) follows Zhdanov from July 1918 in Ekaterinburg , where the last tsar and his family were executed"
• [9] The order to execute the Romanov family came directly from Lenin.
• [10] moscow did not welcome the execution of the imperial family
• [11] "Dutch resentment over the killing of the romanov family"
• [12] " Whatever the reason for the decision to execute the Romanov captives, there is now little doubt that Lenin approved the order himself. Yakov Yurovsky, the head of the Ekaterinburg Cheka tasked with the executions, was possessed of a peculiar rectitude typical of The Heist"
• [13] can access the page but it does mention "execution of Nicholas II . It was also decided to liquidate the remainder of the family , but to announce that they ' had been carried off to an unknown place ."

This proves that sources do not consider this to be a murder but only use the term "Murder" to show a condemnation of the event, which is why even on the same page these sources switch to using " execution" to describe this event. In any case, WP:POVNAME applies and murder is undoubtedly a POV title and the article needs to be moved to a neutral title. Koshuri ^(あ!) 08:11, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moscow did not welcome the execution of the imperial family; this is followed by a brief report of mine. This is written from the point of view of the diplomat, and thus it is not a reliable source and should be discarded, just as I explained in the notes column.

I provided the table as an attempt to compare the frequency of different words in reliable sources, following an intuitive and consistent methodology so the approach can be easily replicated. This can be done relatively quickly, while also providing more informative results than a bulk count with Google Books/Scholar. Any more complicated analysis will inevitably face issues related to bias. For instance, let's consider the green sources from the "execution" table:

• Russia Experiment with a People he and his family were murdered by the communists
• For King and Country The British Monarchy and the First World War brutal murder of the tsar and his family
• Children of the Gulag Romanov:Bolshevik murder of family and predated the murder of the Romanov children
• Nicholas II Last of the Tsars murder of the Romanovs
• The Princeton Anthology of Writing Favorite Pieces by the Ferris/McGraw Writers at Princeton University when she collapsed the enraged murderers pierced her body
• The Defiant Life of Vera Figner Surviving the Russian Revolution the Communists decided to murder the family

This approach, just like the one with Google Scholar/Books, which searched among university presses, led to the same result. We could also try to weight books by the number of references to "execution" or "murder", analyze the context in which the terms appeared, consider works published in journals, in books that aren't from university presses, in books that aren't digitized, etc. However, as the examples above demonstrated, this is expected to lead to the same result, with "murder" being more common than "execution".

I don't see why you decided that the sources don't consider this to be a murder. To me, it looks like they append the word "execution" to the actions of the Bolsheviks, arriving at the following construction: "The Bolsheviks ordered the execution. The Romanov family was murdered". This is pure speculation, just like your hypothesis.

But let's assume that, as you said, the use of the word 'murder' denotes a POV. Among the books from the tables that haven't been mentioned:

• One, by Paul Robinson, is about different Romanovs and a different place and concerns an order that wasn't put into action, so it probably should have been colored yellow or even red.
• Fredrick: may have massacred their aristocrats in a style comparable to the 1917 execution of the Romanovs,
• Suny: Goloshchekin ... notorious as an organizer of the execution of the Romanov family
• Service: extermination of the Romanovs

These are judgmental descriptions, so we are left with only three works, one of which has no preview, that do not make a judgment. Therefore, if the word "murder" denotes condemnation as you said, we can conclude that 24 out of 27 green works demonstrate it to some extent. Kelob2678 (talk) 19:13, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“Scholarly opinion is that this was an execution”. I agree. “Scholarly” almost always means dispassionate. Execution is more dispassionate than murder. Wikipedia should lean to the dispassionate, which is why I prefer “execution” to “murder”, while noting that both are common in reliable sources. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:09, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Why not Assassination of Nicholas II and family? They were all public/political persons, thus assassinated per definition, and this family was by far not the only Romanvos killed. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 21:43, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @SergeWoodzing They were under house arrest. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 21:46, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @SergeWoodzing They were under house arrest. Carbohydrates53 (talk) 21:59, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support alternate Assassination of Nicholas II and family. Good NPOV suggestion. Andrewa (talk) 21:53, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Because “assassination” is not well used by reliable secondary sources. Because the meaning doesn’t match, assassination usually means a sneak attack on a free target.

  Inventing phrases for a well-sourced and named topic is not the Wikipedia way. Only “murder” and “execution” are viable options. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:38, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "assassination usually means a sneak attack on a free target" is an invention by that user. SergeWoodzing (talk) 12:02, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assassination “murder by sudden or secret attack often for political reasons”

  The execution of the Romanovs may have been sudden or secret to them, but it was not sudden or secret to those in control of them.

  - SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:25, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  One single dictionary listing, at odds with most others, does not make or break this. Policial persons incarcerated and then murdered were definitely assassinated. No sneaking needed. Same if poison was applied to their food in a palace kitchen or a conspiracy had planned the murder for years: assassination, even called successful planned assassination. Also, many other Romanov families were murdered, not just this one, so the whole idea as currently named is flawed at its base. SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:05, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Google Ngram puts assassination a clear third. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:33, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I believe we are at liberty to call a spade a spade, an apple an apple (not an orange) and an assassination an assasination, regardless of Google Ngram. SergeWoodzing (talk) 15:03, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• New proposal The arcticle should be renamned Assassination of Nicholas II and family, partly because (1) it can never be determined whether or not they were criminals, thus executed; partly because (2) they were political persons, thus clearly assassinated; and partly because (3) this was not the only Romanov family killed. The article has had a sloppy name for a very long time, and that needs acction. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 15:09, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]