A black metal színpadi nevei

Absztrakt

Towards a classification of black metal musicians’ stage names

This paper provides the first tentative attempt to divide into groups the stage names used in black metal music. These names are used by musicians primarily to express their belonging to the "dark side", as well as to express their negative attitude to the world. The names can be classified according to their structure and their origin. In terms of structure, stage names can be divided into three groups: those consisting of one, two, and more than two elements, among which the simple stage names occur most frequently, probably because of the musicians’ striving to invent eyecatching names which are easy to remember. As far as origin is concerned, musicians have drawn on the Bible, ancient mythology, history, literary works, and everyday words, taking common as well as proper nouns, usually bearing a closer or farther relation to death, darkness, destruction, and the devil. Despite being restricted by the ideology of the genre, the stage names listed in the paper attest that these musicians possess both rich imagination and erudition in various fields of human knowledge.