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Black Metal History

10 Black Metal Stage Name Origins

0 Black Metal Stage Name Origins" src="https://cdn-p.smehost.net/sites/7f9737f2506941499994d771a29ad47a/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/burzum-300×300.jpg" width="300" height="300" />Count Grishnackh / Varg Kvisling Larsson Vikernes

Birth Name: Kristian Larssøn Vikernes

In between writing songs for his one man band Burzum, Vikernes became notorious for murdering Mayhem guitarist Euronymous, as well as setting fires to a number of christian churches. Despite his busy schedule of death, christian hate, and being grim Kristian found the time to pick several aliases for himself including the widely known Count Grishnackh (taken from the name of an Orc in The Lord Of The Rings series) which he described as "a nom de guerre to stay unknown to the world." After his incarceration and the world knew who he was, he legally changed his name to Varg Kvisling Larsson Vikernes, with "kvisling" being an homage to Vidkun Quisling, the collaborationist leader who led a puppet government in Nazi-occupied Norway. The name "Varg" is an old east Norse word that roughly translates to "Wolf, Evildoer,or Destroyer". When asked about his fascination with the various name changing (apparently he once again legally changed his name after leaving prison, but refuses to use it in public) he responded "I am a man of many names, and I like that. It is a Norse tradition to give names to people as they suit them, as you view them. Thus we all have many names. Odinn as an example has 149 different names in the Edda poems alone."

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