Particle を between nouns


So there I am again, asking a question from the book "Sword Art Online 1".

This time it's about the sentence: またの名`を`≪ソードアート・オンライン≫。

What is the meaning of を in this case?




The particle `を` is a 格助詞{かくじょし} ("case particle"). Normally, a case particle
marks a noun or noun phrase to show its relationship to the predicate (such as
a verb or an adjective), or to another noun or noun phrase. Specifically, the
particle `を` marks the [accusative
case](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_case). This means that it marks
the _direct object_ of a verb.

Therefore, we would expect to find just such a verb in this sentence. Since
there _is_ no verb, we can assume this is an example of
[ellipsis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis_%28linguistics%29). Something
has been left out, and as the reader, it's our job to guess what it is.

Searching on
[Google](https://www.google.com/search?hl=ja&q=%E3%81%BE%E3%81%9F%E3%81%AE%E5%90%8D%E3%82%92)
and
[Weblio](http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%BE%E3%81%9F%E3%81%AE%E5%90%8D%E3%82%92)
for `またの名を` reveals that it is a common phrase meaning "also known as". The
full phrase `またの名を〜と言う` is [also listed on
Weblio](http://thesaurus.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%BE%E3%81%9F%E3%81%AE%E5%90%8D%E3%82%92%EF%BD%9E%E3%81%A8%E8%A8%80%E3%81%86)
and appears to be relatively common, so it's reasonable to guess that the
elided phrase is `と言う`. (You could also guess that it's `と呼ぶ` or something
similar; it doesn't change the meaning very much.)

Therefore, we can interpret your sentence as the following:

> またの名を≪ソードアート・オンライン≫と言う。

So what does `を` mean in this sentence? It has the same function it usually
does, which is marking the direct object of a verb.

