Renaming artist after marriage

justcheckingitout · December 1, 2021, 8:57pm

I’ve already voted. But after thinking it over, I thought maybe this could be a topic for a larger discussion. Maybe even a guideline test case?

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Here we have an artist. Female. With a career spanning over six decades.
Full time. Part time. Local. National. Current, and historical (meaning, she plays off of her past).

She has a maiden name (Hall). A married name (Nielsen).
Even though the marriage only lasted 3 years (ten years if you include their 2nd marriage, which happened 40 years later), she used the married name as her artist name for the bulk of her career (and life). Many times with a hyphen (Hall-Nielsen). Even the husband’s obituaries use the hyphenated name.

Here’s the issue:
She remarried in 2019 (Murray).

Her husband (Murray) is a musician. They are doing music together.

Do we rename the artist page?
Her facebook is listed as Brenda Nielsen Murray. There are a couple places that call her Brenda Murray. Many still use Hall-Nielsen.

Thoughts?

highstrung · December 1, 2021, 9:24pm

I would say that either the FB page or the website cited in the edit are official enough to be followed, so either Brenda Murray or Brenda Nielsen Murray.

As a general rule, I believe we should use the artist’s current performance name. That may mean going back to older relationships, like group memberships, to set them as “credited as” the older name.