Style/Artist/Sort Name: Difference between revisions

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{{official style guideline}}
{{official style guideline}}


This pages describes how to format the [[Artist Sort Name]] for [[Artist Name]]s.
This page describes how to format an artist's [[Artist Sort Name|sort name]].


== Guidelines ==
== Guidelines ==
<ol>
<li>Person artist names have sort name "last name, first name".</li>
<ol style="list-style-type:lower-alpha">
<li>Middle names and nicknames should be treated as a part of the first name.</li>
<li> Names beginning with an abbreviated title, such as Dr., DJ, or MC should have the title treated as if it were a part of the first name.</li>
<li>Last names which begin with an abbreviation should have the abbreviation expanded in the sort name.</li>
</ol>
<li>Group artist names beginning with an [[WikiPedia:Article_(grammar)|article]] ''(a, an, the, etc.)'' have the article moved to the end of their sort name, unless guideline 2a applies.</li>
<ol style="list-style-type:lower-alpha">
<li> Where a real person's name appears in a group artist's name, the artist's sort name should be the sort name for that person, followed by the remainder of the group artist's name.</li>
</ol>
<li>All [[Artist Sort Name|artist sort names]] should be in [[WikiPedia:Latin characters in Unicode|Latin script]]. If the [[Artist Name|artist's name]] is normally written using a non-Latin script, use the Latin script translated or transliterated name by which the artist is most commonly known.</li>
<li>For artist names containing stylized characters, change those characters to their equivalent Latin script letter, removing any style-only punctuation, spacing, or other characters.</li>
<li>[[Artist Sort Name|Artist sort names]] should retain all Latin [[WikiPedia:Diacritic#Types|diacritics]] present in the [[Artist Name|artist name]].</li>
<li>Numerals present in the [[Artist Name|artist name]] do not change.</li>
<li>Any [[WikiPedia:List of precomposed Latin characters in Unicode#Ligatures|stylistic ligatures]] in the artist's name (ᵫ, ff, fi, fl, ffi, ffl, ſt, st, etc) should be simplified to separate letters. Non-stylistic ligatures (&, ß, Æ, æ, Œ, œ, and sometimes ij) should not be simplified.</li>
<li>Only halfwidth characters should be used. [[WikiPedia:Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms|Fullwidth]] Latin characters should be converted to their halfwidth equivalents.</li>
<li>All disparate parts of a sort name should be separated by ", " (comma and space).</li>
</ol>


Exceptions:
Sortnames are heavily edited in order to sort all artists well, international ones and those with extremely weird names. The following rules apply:
# If the artist's name contains '''only''' stylized characters, which have no inherent meaning to translate, and which cannot be transliterated, then the sort name is the artist's name, even if this would mean the sort name would now not use Latin script.
# All [[Artist Sort Name]]s should be '''in Latin script'''.
# Latin characters whose diacritics are only made possible through use of [[WikiPedia:Combining characters|Unicode combining characters]] should omit those diacritics.
#* If the [[Artist Name]] is in a non-Latin script, use the transliterated or translated name by which the artist is commonly known.
# 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.
# [[Artist Sort Name]]s '''contain all the accented characters''' that are present in the [[Artist Name]], as long as they're in Latin script.
# '''Numerals do not change.'''
# If an [[Artist Name]] consists of two or more '''collaborating artists, each individual name is sorted separately''' according to the rules below. Note: The 'separator' (e.g. "&", "and", "with", "vs." or "," (comma)) stays the same.
# All parts of a sort name are separated by ", " (comma and space).


== Examples ==
== Examples ==
All examples should be interpreted as clarification upon the guidelines; no new guidelines should be interpreted from any example.


===Guideline 1. Name of a person===
=== Transliteration ===
:* [[Artist:618b6900-0618-4f1e-b835-bccb17f84294|Eric Clapton]] has sort name "Clapton, Eric"
* ''[[Artist:9ddd7abc-9e1b-471d-8031-583bc6bc8be9|Пётр Ильич Чайковский]]'' is transliterated to ''Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky'', and has the sortname "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich".
:* [[Artist:fd23e684-270f-4507-9cb0-a0e0d7854d16|Harry Connick, Jr.]] has sort name "Connick Jr., Harry"
=== De-stylizing ===
* ''[[Artist:7c259e8a-f67b-45ff-b0f5-6b63d3a692cf|My$t:c DJz]]'' have sort name ''"Mystic DJz"''.
* ''[[Artist:603ba565-3967-4be1-931e-9cb945394e86|*NSync]]'' have sort name ''"NSync"''.
* ''[[Artist:902286c2-e7d1-4ee8-adb6-216d6a71a05c|t r a n c e [] c o n t r o l]]'' have sort name ''"trance control"''.


===Guideline 1a. Middle names and nicknames===
'''Exceptions''': [[Artist]]s whose names use characters which do not mean anything, and thus cannot be transliterated in any way.
:* Jean 'Toots' Thielemans has sort name "Thielemans, Jean 'Toots'"
* ''[[Artist:595198f1-3558-4a57-be64-f0f5f5de7254|(´・д・)ノ]]'' has sort name ''"(´・д・)ノ"''.
* ''[[Artist:d867d382-35fc-49fb-a45a-64b66c0b8557|♪◆m599XGSMF6]]'' has sort name ''"♪◆m599XGSMF6"''.


===Guideline 1b. Name begins with an abbreviated title===
=== Accented characters ===
* ''"René Löwe"'' has sort name ''"Löwe, René"''.
:* [[Artist:ebd7d505-9eb8-4c74-9dd4-ebe308e04d72|DJ Shah]] has sort name "Shah, DJ"
:* SPC Stephen Pauls has sort name "Pauls, SPC Stephen"


===Guideline 1c. Last name begins with abbreviation===
=== Numerals ===
:* [[Artist:302716e4-a702-4bbc-baac-591f8a8e20bc|Rebecca St. James]] has sort name "Saint James, Rebecca"
* ''"The Four Freshmen''" have sort name ''"Four Freshmen, The"''.
:* [[Artist:51da3924-90e9-41fb-be47-58f30176a101|St. Lunatics]] has sort name "Saint Lunatics"
* ''"10,000 Maniacs"'' have sort name ''"10,000 Maniacs"''.
* ''"Maroon 5"'' have sort name ''"Maroon 5"''.


===Guideline 2. Name of a group===
=== Collaborating Artists ===
:'''A'''
* ''"Bob Dylan and The Band"'' have sort name ''"Dylan, Bob and Band, The"''.
::* [[Artist:078a9376-3c04-4280-b7d7-b20e158f345d|A Perfect Circle]] has sort name "Perfect Circle, A"
* ''"B.B. King & Eric Clapton"'' have sort name ''"King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric"''.
:'''An'''
'''Exceptions''': When an artist's name seem to consist of more than one artist, but does not.
::* [[Artist:351abf24-534b-4aad-b26c-d19f56c572f2|An Epic at Best]] has sort name "Epic at Best, An"
* ''"Hootie & the Blowfish"'' have the same sort name, "Hootie & the Blowfish", because "the Blowfish" are not a separate band.
:'''The'''
::* [[Artist:2b9967c7-3246-4658-a561-ded5408dd9af|Los Lobos]] has sort name "Lobos, Los"
::* [[Artist:b10bbbfc-cf9e-42e0-be17-e2c3e1d2600d|The Beatles]] has sort name "Beatles, The"
:'''No Article'''
::* [[Artist:51508c1f-8d07-4a00-9cf1-26c570fe7b78|Cypress Hill]] has sort name "Cypress Hill"
::* [[Artist:b3120863-d98d-4bad-a637-8abd8cde6685|Hootie & the Blowfish]] has sort name "Hootie & the Blowfish"
:'''Guideline 2a overriding guideline 2'''
::* "[[Artist:b304dc15-a567-47f7-9db0-8e9a1aeeba1e|The Sensational Alex Harvey Band]]" has sort name "Harvey, Alex, The Sensational, Band"


===Guideline 2a. Name of a person in a group artist name===
=== Part Separation ===
:* [[Artist:abe2669a-a612-4bf6-9193-bb4f4b8a9088|Ben Folds Five]] has sort name "Folds, Ben, Five"
* For artist names that are regular names, the sort name will be "Last Name, First Name".
:* [[Artist:4458d70d-c215-4f06-beea-ebd448dad6ac|Bill Haley & His Comets]] has sort name "Haley, Bill & His Comets"
*: ''"Eric Clapton"'' 's sort name is ''"Clapton, Eric"''.
:* [[Artist:c296e10c-110a-4103-9e77-47bfebb7fb2e|Bob Marley and the Wailers]] has sort name "Marley, Bob and the Wailers"
* For artist names that are ficticious names, the sort name is the same as the artist name.
:* [[Artist:07e748f1-075e-428d-85dc-ce3be434e906|Dave Matthews Band]] has sort name "Matthews, Dave, Band
*: ''"Franz Ferdinand"''
:* [[Artist:2bf1f61a-6dc8-43bd-aaf4-8852a0c4a345|Don Redman and His Orchestra]] has sort name "Redman, Don and His Orchestra"
*: ''"Cypress Hill"''.
:* [[Artist:40d8f506-0d62-49bd-9bae-8c52b72c9ee1|Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine]] has sort name "Estefan, Gloria and the Miami Sound Machine"
* For artist names that start with "The", that word is treated as is it were a first name of a regular name.
:* [[Artist:e3c8b0c8-3fa0-464b-b1f5-119cb52d3817|Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble]] has sort name "Vaughan, Stevie Ray and Double Trouble"
*: ''"The Beatles"'' have sort name ''"Beatles, The"''.
:* [[Artist:f98711e5-06f7-43ed-8239-da0f61a9c460|The Alan Parsons Project]] has sort name "Parsons, Alan, The, Project"
* Non-english articles like La, El, Los and Le are treated as the English article "The".
:* [[Artist:33b3c323-77c2-417c-a5b4-af7e6a111cc9|The Jimi Hendrix Experience]] has sort name "Hendrix, Jimi, The, Experience"
*: ''"Los Lobos"'' have sort name ''"Lobos, Los"''.
:* '''The Great Orchestra and John Doe''' has sort name "Doe, John, The Great Orchestra and"
* 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"''.
*: ''"Bill Haley & His Comets"'' have sort name ''"Haley, Bill & His Comets"''.


===Guideline 3. Latin script only===
=== Miscellaneous Examples ===
:* [[Artist:9ddd7abc-9e1b-471d-8031-583bc6bc8be9|Пётр Ильич Чайковский]] "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich"
* ''"A Perfect Circle"'' has sort name ''"A Perfect Circle"''.
:* [[Artist:5565ae4b-bb20-48a4-a8b0-dfdeb53b555a|布袋寅泰‎]] has sort name "Hotei, Tomoyasu"


===Guideline 4. De-stylize===
==Language specific rules==
:* [[Artist:7c259e8a-f67b-45ff-b0f5-6b63d3a692cf|My$t:c DJz]] has sort name "Mystic DJz"
:* [[Artist:603ba565-3967-4be1-931e-9cb945394e86|*NSync]] has sort name "NSync"
:* [[Artist:f4d5cc07-3bc9-4836-9b15-88a08359bc63|P!ink]] has sort name "Pink"
:* [[Artist:902286c2-e7d1-4ee8-adb6-216d6a71a05c|trance[]control]] has sort name "trancecontrol"


===Guideline 5. Accented Latin characters===
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.
:* [[Artist:f12647e5-d3aa-4dd4-b83b-c45eea712b60|René Löwe]] has sort name "Löwe, René"


====Chinese====
===Guideline 6. Numerals===
:* [[Artist:53a61b1f-dd88-45e7-b5d8-3e84038aa81a|The Four Freshmen]] has sort name "Four Freshmen, The"
:* [[Artist:b9a06530-1241-4162-836f-7b8e79deaa58|10,000 Maniacs]] has sort name "10,000 Maniacs"
:* [[Artist:0ab49580-c84f-44d4-875f-d83760ea2cfe|Maroon 5]] has sort name "Maroon 5"


===Exception 1. Nothing to trans(liter)ate===
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.
:* [[Artist:595198f1-3558-4a57-be64-f0f5f5de7254|(´・д・)ノ]] has sort name "(´・д・)ノ"
:* [[Artist:d867d382-35fc-49fb-a45a-64b66c0b8557|♪◆m599XGSMF6]] has sort name "♪◆m599XGSMF6"


===Exception 2. Unicode combining character accents===
Examples:
:* [[Artist:d0a0b3a2-ea58-4a7a-b18c-849d589bfac7|Spın̈al Tap]] has sort name "Spınal Tap"
* "Zhang, Weiliang" (Hanyu Pinyin for [[Artist:14ac8a28-6402-4506-bc34-7709ce964a0b|张维良]])
* "Chung, Hsing-min" (Wades-Giles for [[Artist:983d3250-a833-45c4-a88d-3af543d5c1b9|鍾興民]])


==Language specific rules==
====Dutch====
No language-specific exceptions are currently official. Please reference the discussion page for proposed language-specific exceptions to this guideline.

[[Artist Name]]s with a ''[http://www.eogen.com/Tussen 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 ''[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particule_%28onomastique%29 particules]'' is to put it behind the first name (like in Portuguese it seems). Hence, "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_de_Musset Alfred de Musset]" gets the sortname of "Musset, Alfred de". MB live example at [[Artist:7119d597-5bda-4360-8b2b-892000e3d781|François de Roubaix]].

More complicated examples:
* "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_La_Fontaine Jean de La Fontaine]" -> "La Fontaine, Jean de"
* "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahaut%2C_Countess_of_Artois Mahaut d'Artois]" -> "Artois, Mahaut d'"
* "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Poivre_d%27Arvor Patrick Poivre d'Arvor]" -> "Poivre d'Arvor, Patrick"

====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.


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Revision as of 17:48, 23 March 2010

Status: This Page is Glorious History!

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This page describes how to format an artist's sort name.

Guidelines

  1. Person artist names have sort name "last name, first name".
    1. Middle names and nicknames should be treated as a part of the first name.
    2. Names beginning with an abbreviated title, such as Dr., DJ, or MC should have the title treated as if it were a part of the first name.
    3. Last names which begin with an abbreviation should have the abbreviation expanded in the sort name.
  2. Group artist names beginning with an article (a, an, the, etc.) have the article moved to the end of their sort name, unless guideline 2a applies.
    1. Where a real person's name appears in a group artist's name, the artist's sort name should be the sort name for that person, followed by the remainder of the group artist's name.
  3. All artist sort names should be in Latin script. If the artist's name is normally written using a non-Latin script, use the Latin script translated or transliterated name by which the artist is most commonly known.
  4. For artist names containing stylized characters, change those characters to their equivalent Latin script letter, removing any style-only punctuation, spacing, or other characters.
  5. Artist sort names should retain all Latin diacritics present in the artist name.
  6. Numerals present in the artist name do not change.
  7. Any stylistic ligatures in the artist's name (ᵫ, ff, fi, fl, ffi, ffl, ſt, st, etc) should be simplified to separate letters. Non-stylistic ligatures (&, ß, Æ, æ, Œ, œ, and sometimes ij) should not be simplified.
  8. Only halfwidth characters should be used. Fullwidth Latin characters should be converted to their halfwidth equivalents.
  9. All disparate parts of a sort name should be separated by ", " (comma and space).

Exceptions:

  1. If the artist's name contains only stylized characters, which have no inherent meaning to translate, and which cannot be transliterated, then the sort name is the artist's name, even if this would mean the sort name would now not use Latin script.
  2. Latin characters whose diacritics are only made possible through use of Unicode combining characters should omit those diacritics.

Examples

All examples should be interpreted as clarification upon the guidelines; no new guidelines should be interpreted from any example.

Guideline 1. Name of a person

Guideline 1a. Middle names and nicknames

  • Jean 'Toots' Thielemans has sort name "Thielemans, Jean 'Toots'"

Guideline 1b. Name begins with an abbreviated title

  • DJ Shah has sort name "Shah, DJ"
  • SPC Stephen Pauls has sort name "Pauls, SPC Stephen"

Guideline 1c. Last name begins with abbreviation

Guideline 2. Name of a group

A
An
The
No Article
Guideline 2a overriding guideline 2

Guideline 2a. Name of a person in a group artist name

Guideline 3. Latin script only

Guideline 4. De-stylize

Guideline 5. Accented Latin characters

Guideline 6. Numerals

Exception 1. Nothing to trans(liter)ate

Exception 2. Unicode combining character accents

Language specific rules

No language-specific exceptions are currently official. Please reference the discussion page for proposed language-specific exceptions to this guideline.