Thank you for (and Janifer Gatenby) for this answer.

My reading of this is that people who change their name when they marry 
don't get a new ISNI, but those who change it when they transition 
gender do, because that's a new identify.

That's useful to know.

cheers
stuart

On 06/19/2014 12:11 AM, Richard Wallis wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Seeing this thread I checked with the ISNI team and got the following
> answer from Janifer Gatenby who asked me to post it on her behalf:
>
> SNI identifies “public identities”.    The scope as stated in the standard
> is
>
>
>
> “This International Standard specifies the International Standard name
> identif*i*er (ISNI) for the identification of public identities of parties;
> that is, the identities used publicly by parties involved throughout the
> media content industries in the creation, production, management, and
> content distribution chains.”
>
>
>
> The relevant definitions are:
>
>
>
> *3.1*
>
> *party*
>
> natural person or legal person, whether or not incorporated, or a group of
> either
>
> *3.3*
>
> *public identity*
>
> Identity of a *party *(3.1) or a fictional character that is or was
> presented to the public
>
> *3.4*
>
> *name*
>
> character string by which a *public identity *(3.3) is or was commonly
> referenced
>
>
>
> A party may have multiple public identities and a public identity may have
> multiple names (e.g. pseudonyms)
>
>
>
> ISNI data is available as linked data.  There are currently 8 million ISNIs
> assigned and 16 million links.
>
>
>
> Example:
>
>
>
> [image: <image001.png>]
>
> ~Richard.
>
>
> On 16 June 2014 10:54, Ben Companjen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Stuart,
>>
>> I don't have a copy of the official standard, but from the documents on
>> the ISNI website I remember that there are name variations and 'public
>> identities' (as the lemma on Wikipedia also uses). I'm not sure where the
>> borderline is or who decides when different names are different identities.
>>
>> If it were up to me: pseudonyms are definitely different public
>> identities, name changes after marriage probably not, name change after
>> gender change could mean a different public identity. Different public
>> identities get different ISNIs; the ISNI organisation says the ISNI system
>> can keep track of connected public identities.
>>
>> Discussions about name variations or aliases are not new, of course. I
>> remember the discussions about 'aliases' vs 'Artist Name Variations' that
>> are/were happening on Discogs.com, e.g. 'is J Dilla an alias or a ANV of
>> Jay Dee?' It appears the users on Discogs finally went with aliases, but
>> VIAF put the names/identities together: http://viaf.org/viaf/32244000 -
>> and there is no ISNI (yet).
>>
>> It gets more confusing when you look at Washington Irving who had several
>> pseudonyms: they are just listed under one ISNI. Maybe because he is dead,
>> or because all other databases already know and connected the pseudonyms
>> to the birth name? (I just sent a comment asking about the record at
>> http://isni.org/isni/0000000121370797 )
>>
>>
>> [Here goes the reference list…]
>>
>> Hope this helps :)
>>
>> Groeten van Ben
>>
>> On 15-06-14 23:11, "Stuart Yeates" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Could someone with access to the official text of ISO 27729:2012 tell me
>>> whether an ISNI is a name identifier or an entity identifier? That is,
>>> if someone changes their name (adopts a pseudonym, changes their name by
>>> to marriage, transitions gender, etc), should they be assigned a new
>>> identifier?
>>>
>>> If the answer is 'No' why is this called a 'name identifier'?
>>>
>>> Ideally someone with access to the official text would update the
>>> article at
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Name_Identifier
>>> With a brief quote referenced to the standard with a page number.
>>>
>>> [The context of this is ORCID, which is being touted as an entity
>>> identifier, while not being clear on whether it's a name or entity
>>> identifier.]
>>>
>>> cheers
>>> stuart
>>
>
>
>