Actually you would be surprised at the nature of some of the renaming debates on Wikipedia in the area of artists like the one you mention, but also artists from the 17th-century. One could probably write a funny book about renaming debates on Wikipedia.
You could start by expanding the relevant entries from this page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars/Names
For one of the most famous recent examples, look at Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness, up to about Archive 7. Or the way it's best summarized here: http://xkcd.com/1167/
And, at the bottom of the current talk page, someone almost inadvertently revived it.
Daniel Case