Style/Artist/Sort Name: Difference between revisions

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(Add rules for Belgian artists and fix a small spelling error.)
(→‎Collaborating Artists: Moving per style discussion in December-Jan on this being an incorrect example.)
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* ''"Bob Dylan and The Band"'' have sort name ''"Dylan, Bob and Band, The"''.
* ''"Bob Dylan and The Band"'' have sort name ''"Dylan, Bob and Band, The"''.
* ''"B.B. King & Eric Clapton"'' have sort name ''"King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric"''.
* ''"B.B. King & Eric Clapton"'' have sort name ''"King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric"''.
* ''"Bill Haley & His Comets"'' have sort name ''"Haley, Bill & His Comets"''.
'''Exceptions''': When an artist's name seem to consist of more than one artist, but does not.
'''Exceptions''': When an artist's name seem to consist of more than one artist, but does not.
* ''"Hootie & the Blowfish"'' have the same sort name, "Hootie & the Blowfish", because "the Blowfish" are not a separate band.
* ''"Hootie & the Blowfish"'' have the same sort name, "Hootie & the Blowfish", because "the Blowfish" are not a separate band.


=== Part Separation ===
=== Part Separation ===

Revision as of 05:55, 1 March 2010

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This pages describes how to format the Artist Sort Name for Artist Names.

Guidelines

Sortnames are heavily edited in order to sort all artists well, international ones and those with extremely weird names. The following rules apply:

  1. All Artist Sort Names should be in Latin script.
    • If the Artist Name is in a non-Latin script, use the transliterated or translated name by which the artist is commonly known.
  2. For artist names that are stylised, change stylised characters to their equivalent letter and remove any style-only characters and apply the rules below.
    • This also applies to names which include unusual punctuation or spacing which is not intended to be pronounced using the normal rules.
  3. Artist Sort Names contain all the accented characters that are present in the Artist Name, as long as they're in Latin script.
  4. Numerals do not change.
  5. If an Artist Name consists of two or more collaborating artists, each individual name is sorted separately according to the rules below.
    • The 'separator' (e.g. "&", "and", "with", "vs." or "," (comma)) stays the same.
  6. All parts of a sort name are separated by ", " (comma and space).

Examples

Transliteration

De-stylizing

Exceptions: Artists whose names use characters which do not mean anything, and thus cannot be transliterated in any way.

Accented characters

  • "René Löwe" has sort name "Löwe, René".

Numerals

  • "The Four Freshmen" have sort name "Four Freshmen, The".
  • "10,000 Maniacs" have sort name "10,000 Maniacs".
  • "Maroon 5" have sort name "Maroon 5".

Collaborating Artists

  • "Bob Dylan and The Band" have sort name "Dylan, Bob and Band, The".
  • "B.B. King & Eric Clapton" have sort name "King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric".

Exceptions: When an artist's name seem to consist of more than one artist, but does not.

  • "Hootie & the Blowfish" have the same sort name, "Hootie & the Blowfish", because "the Blowfish" are not a separate band.

Part Separation

  • For artist names that are regular names, the sort name will be "Last Name, First Name".
    "Eric Clapton" 's sort name is "Clapton, Eric".
  • For artist names that are ficticious names, the sort name is the same as the artist name.
    "Franz Ferdinand"
    "Cypress Hill".
  • For artist names that start with "The", that word is treated as is it were a first name of a regular name.
    "The Beatles" have sort name "Beatles, The".
  • Non-english articles like La, El, Los and Le are treated as the English article "The".
    "Los Lobos" have sort name "Lobos, Los".
  • For artist names that start with a title like "Dr.", "DJ" or "MC", that title is treated as is it were a first name of a regular name.
    "DJ Tiësto" has sort name "Tiësto, DJ".
  • For artist names that end with a title like "Jr." or "Sr.", that title is always put at the end of the sort name, preceded by ", ".
    "Harry Connick, Jr." has sort name "Connick, Harry, Jr.".
  • For artist names with a nickname between the first name and last name, the nickname is treated as if it's part of the first name of the artist.
    "Jean 'Toots' Thielemans" has sort name "Thielemans, Jean 'Toots'".
  • For artists, or groups, whose last names start with an abbreviation, the last names are unabbreviated in the sort name.
    "Rebecca St. James" has sort name "Saint James, Rebecca".
    "St. Lunatics" has sort name "Saint Lunatics".
  • Artist names that contain a person's name (usually eponymous band names) sort as the person primarily, with remaining identifiers as comma-separated suffixes.
    "The Sensational Alex Harvey Band" has sort name "Harvey, Alex, Sensational, Band, The".
    "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" has sort name "Hendrix, Jimi, Experience, The".

Miscellaneous Examples

  • "A Perfect Circle" has sort name "A Perfect Circle".

Language specific rules

These language specific rules are not official, but are generally applied for artist names in the languages listed below. Sort names for non-English artist names are not discussed yet. Please help out.

Chinese

If the artist has chosen an "English" name and capitalization, use that. Otherwise, apply the most commonly used Romanization system in the artists home region. For mainland China artists, use Hanyu Pinyin with the given name written without space. For Taiwan artists it is common for the surname to be written in a variant of Wades-Giles. If the given name is written in Wades-Giles, it should be separated with a dash and only the first letter capitalized. Hong Kong artists typically use a Cantonese romanization.

Examples:

  • "Zhang, Weiliang" (Hanyu Pinyin for 张维良)
  • "Chung, Hsing-min" (Wades-Giles for 鍾興民)

Dutch

Artist Names with a tussenvoegsel (there is no English word for this; it's the bit between the first and last name): artist "Boudewijn de Groot" to "Groot, de, Boudewijn". This seems to me the most clear and logically correct way to sort these artists. Since "de" is not part of the first name ("de Groot" is the last name), and since we want to sort these persons under "Groot" the best option is "Groot, de, Boudewijn". Better than "Groot, Boudewijn de" where "de" seems to be part of the first name, which it is incorrect. For Belgian artists there ussually is no "tussenvoegsel" and it's part of the name, for instance "Wim De Craene" should be sorted as "De Craene, Wim".

French

The French use for particules is to put it behind the first name (like in Portuguese it seems). Hence, "Alfred de Musset" gets the sortname of "Musset, Alfred de". MB live example at François de Roubaix.

More complicated examples:

Hungarian

Hungarian names follow the "western" custom, using given name and family name. However, Hungary is the only European country to place the family name before the given names, i.e. it uses the eastern name order. So effectively the sort name equals the name there.

Icelandic

Sort on their first name.

Italian

All of the official rules above apply. Articles to put after if they come first are "il", "gli", "lo", "la", "i", "le". The Italian equivalent of the Dutch "van" are "de" and "del" and should be treated as the Dutch rules.

Japanese

Names are usually family name first, given name second. As a result, the sortname (once transliterated) is the same as the artist name. However, Japanese artists commonly known in countries that use Latin script often reverse their name for releases in those nations, so some caution is required when adding such artists.

Portuguese

Person:

  • Last name, First name [2nd, 3rd, ...]. Example: "Moreira, Gilberto Passos Gil"
  • Specific rules:
    • Compost last name. Example: "Espírito Santo, Pedro"
    • Familiar ship indication names (Filho, Neto, Júnior), go with the last name. Example: "Connick Júnior, Harry"
    • de, da, e before last name. Example: "Hollanda, Francisco Buarque de"

Romanian

Persons are sorted normally (Last Name, First Name). There are no "de" or "von" particles in normal Romanian names. Bands with Romanian names are always sorted by their name, because the definite article in Romanian is a suffix.