Style / Artist / Sort Name
Status: This is an official style guideline. |
This page describes how to format an artist’s sort name.
Guidelines
- Person artist names have sort name “family name, given name”.
- Middle names and nicknames should be treated as a part of the given name.
- 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 given name.
- Family names which begin with an abbreviation should have the abbreviation expanded in the sort name.
- Suffixes like “Jr.” and “Sr.” should be listed after the given name.
- Group artist names beginning with an article (a, an, the, etc.) have the article moved to the end of their sort name.
- 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.
- The main artist sort name should be in Latin script for compatibility reasons. 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. Alias sort names should use the appropriate script for the locale.
- For artist names containing stylized characters, change those characters to their equivalent Latin script letter, removing any style-only punctuation, spacing, or other characters, unless the artist’s name contains only stylized characters, which have no inherent meaning to translate, and which cannot be transliterated.
- Artist sort names should retain all Latin diacritics present in the artist name.
- Numerals present in the artist name do not change.
- All disparate parts of a sort name should be separated by “, ” (comma and space).
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
- Eric Clapton has sort name “Clapton, Eric”
- Eötvös Péter has sort name “Eötvös, Péter” (name follows Hungarian "Surname Name" order, but the sort name is unaffected)
- Hildur Guðnadóttir has sort name “Hildur Guðnadóttir” (Guðnadóttir is a patronymic, not a surname, as custom in Iceland)
- But: Ólafur Arnalds has sort name “Arnalds, Ólafur” (Arnalds is a surname, not a patronymic)
- Boudewijn de Groot has sort name “Groot, Boudewijn de” (Dutch artists’ tussenvoegsel are sorted after the given name as customary in the Netherlands)
- Bart Van den Bossche has sort name “Van den Bossche, Bart” (Belgian artists’ tussenvoegsel are sorted as part of the surname as customary in Belgium)
- Harry Connick, Jr. has sort name “Connick, Harry, Jr.”
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. Family name begins with abbreviation
- Rebecca St. James has sort name “Saint James, Rebecca”
- St. Lunatics has sort name “Saint Lunatics”
Guideline 2. Name of a group
- A
- A Perfect Circle has sort name “Perfect Circle, A”
- An
- An Epic at Best has sort name “Epic at Best, An”
- The
- Los Lobos has sort name “Lobos, Los”
- The Beatles has sort name “Beatles, The”
- No Article
- Cypress Hill has sort name “Cypress Hill”
- Hootie & the Blowfish has sort name “Hootie & the Blowfish”
Guideline 2a. Name of a person in a group artist name
- Ben Folds Five has sort name “Folds, Ben, Five”
- Bill Haley & His Comets has sort name “Haley, Bill & His Comets”
- Bob Marley and the Wailers has sort name “Marley, Bob and the Wailers”
- Dave Matthews Band has sort name “Matthews, Dave, Band”
- Don Redman and His Orchestra has sort name “Redman, Don and His Orchestra”
- Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine has sort name “Estefan, Gloria and the Miami Sound Machine”
- Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble has sort name “Vaughan, Stevie Ray and Double Trouble”
- The Alan Parsons Project has sort name “Parsons, Alan, Project, The”
- The Jimi Hendrix Experience has sort name “Hendrix, Jimi, Experience, The”
- "The Sensational Alex Harvey Band" has sort name “Harvey, Alex, Sensational Band, The”
Guideline 3. Latin script only
- Пётр Ильич Чайковский has sort name “Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich”
- 布袋寅泰 has sort name “Hotei, Tomoyasu”
Guideline 4. De-stylize
- My$t:c DJz has sort name “Mystic DJz”
- *NSync has sort name “NSync”
- P!nk has sort name “Pink”
- trance[]control has sort name “trancecontrol”
- Nothing to trans(liter)ate
- (´・д・)ノ has sort name “(´・д・)ノ”
- ♪◆m599XGSMF6 has sort name “♪◆m599XGSMF6”
Guideline 5. Accented Latin characters
- René Löwe has sort name “Löwe, René”
Guideline 6. Numerals
- The Four Freshmen has sort name “Four Freshmen, The”
- 10,000 Maniacs has sort name “10,000 Maniacs”
- Maroon 5 has sort name “Maroon 5”