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 default language
The given default language field corresponding to the original language field should not be empty, unless taggged with untitled.
For example, if an artist’s listed default language field is set to English, the English field for their listed names should not be empty.
Primary Name
The primary name of the entry includes the official or unofficial romanization and/or English translation.
Rule 26: Prioritize official translations
Prioritize official translations/romanizations even if it is lesser known or breaks VocaDB 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.
Rule 8: No name duplication
Missing names should not to be copied from the other name 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.