Entry Names and Aliases

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General instructions for entry names (= titles) and aliases are documented here.

For entry-specific instructions, check the relevant pages:

Rule 7: Name required

All entries require a name.

If all the primary names are whitespace, add the Untitled tag.

Original Language

Rule 24: Original language required

Original language field should not be “unspecified”.

The “Original language” is the language of the most common, official, primary name. This determines the displayed name when the user setting “preferred display language” is set to “Original”.

This field is automatically set during entry creation but doesn’t automatically update when the names are edited.

Rule 25: Matching primary name

Original name (= default name language) should match with the given primary name, unless tagged with untitled.

Primary Name

The primary name of the entry includes the official or unofficial romanization and/or English translation.

Rule 26: Prioritize official translations

The official romanization and/or translation should be prioritized even if it’s against VocaDB’s romanization guidelines.

Do NOT romanize or translate titles if you do not know the language well enough. Machine translations are strictly forbidden. It’s better to leave the fields empty than to have them incorrect.

Rule 30: No machine translations

Do not add machine translated/romanized titles or lyrics.

Official translations are accepted in any case.

Rule 8: No name duplication

Missing names should not to be copied from the other two fields.

Rule 29: No new non-English translations

New non-English title translations should not be added without a good reason.

For example, the song entry ECHO should not receive new name/title translations.

Acceptable exceptions:

  • Translation is used somewhere elsewhere (add for improved searchability).
  • Translation is related to the original name (additional context/value). For example, マトリョシカ is from the Russian word “Матрёшка”, but is also known by its Romanized form “Matryoshka”.

Non-English

For original names in all languages that aren’t English or Romanized, such as Japanese or Chinese.

Romanized

For foreign original names written in the Latin (western) alphabet, usually Romaji.

English

For official names in English and known translations of foreign names.

Aliases

Aliases are additional, commonly used names for an entry. Most of the time, they are not translations of the primary name, although well-known translations can be added as aliases. Aliases can be in any language.

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