How to deal with differences in naming for a single artist?

[derat]

Other people will be able to answer more authoritatively than me, but from looking at the code, I suspect that a somewhat-simplified explanation is that it’s using a translated primary alias if “Translate artist names” is checked, the main name on the artist entity if “Use standardized artist names” is checked, and the track (or recording) credit otherwise.

This stuff is tricky, though. Some earlier discussion:

Standardized and/or translated artists, what's the expected behaviour?

[PICARD-1232] Use standardized artist names should use the artist as credited if the standardized artist is [unknown] - MetaBrainz JIRA suggests to modify the behaviour when the option Use standardized artist names is enabled. But while i was looking at the code, i noticed that this option is just ignored if Translate artist names to this locale … is set to a language and the artist’s name has an alias matching it. It can be tested using Release “Softly the Silent Night” by A Cappella Men's Ch…

Artist aliases for past names vs. Picard's “Use standardized artist names” option

Individuals sometimes release music under one name for a while and then switch to using a different name. As has been discussed frequently, there are two broadly-accepted ways of representing this in MusicBrainz: Create a single artist entity named after the currently-in-use name and add “ended” aliases for past names (and an alias for the artist’s legal name, if known). Create entities for all of the artist’s performance names and link them to another entity representing the legal name us…