A bit interesting, this. Do we actually want the real/full name?

Messiah Marcolin. Ne(e) Bror. Changed his legal name (yeah, I submitted the report) to Messiah. So the artist page now shows his real full name. And I think that is fair, he has had that name for his most well-known recordings.

Alice Cooper. Pretty much every half-fan will know that he was born Vincent Damon Furnier, as the Metal Archives artist page says.
Not so many know the story of him changing his legal name into Alice Cooper. (In order to be able to perform as "Alice Cooper", I guess ... if the story is true, but is is most believable.)

Rather than submitting one more report, let me rather raise the question I started at in this post: Does one actually want the real/full name? Maybe one rather wants the "real name best-known-as". Or the real name in the creative period. Alice or Vincent then? Simen Hestnæs or Simen Hestnæs-Myhre (he changed name when he married)? Per Christian Rivel or Per Christian Liljegren (he changed name when he divorced)? Arguably, Kristian Quisling Louis Cachet Whatever is better known as Varg Vikernes than as anything else.
The day some metal artist changes his real name multiple times just to get attention at the Metal Archives, you can count it as a milestone towards world domination I guess.

uhm, it's pretty simple: The field is for the actual legal name, as current and complete as possible/verified. That includes any kind of changes from or additions to the birth name, such as marriage or any other sort of legal changes. Any former names can be mentioned in the bio section (and for specific album credits, if they were used).

Azmodes: yes, sure, that is what the field IS for. THAT is pretty simple. (Except all the changes.) My question was not what to use the field for under the current policy. My question was: does it serve its purpose that way, when e.g. Vincent Furnier is out?

Of course, there are a lot of wrong and unverified ones too - I bet you a beer that http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/F ... nes/316626 is not a real name. (Not even sure it is a real person, even.)

Yes, since "Vincent Furnier" is not his real name.


Naturally. When a new artist is added, the name for the entry is automatically copied to the real name field, so there's a lot of pseudonyms in there left by people who missed that. Please report those, if you can't fix them yourself.