Chicago 18th Author–Date style inserting first names in in-text citations

zoterouser1

I’m running into what appears to be an issue with the Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition (author–date) citation style in Zotero.

When I insert a parenthetical citation, Zotero outputs the first name of the first author, which does not appear to match Chicago author–date formatting rules.

For example, Zotero produces:

(Christopher Ansell et al. 2020; Emerson et al. 2012)

But according to Chicago author–date guidelines, the citation should be:

(Ansell et al. 2020; Emerson et al. 2012)

So the first name “Christopher” should not appear in the parenthetical citation.

Details:

Style: Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition (author–date)

Zotero version: 8.0.3

Word processor: Microsoft Word

The issue appears consistently when I cite more than one multi-author works.

I do not come across this issue when citing a single work that has multiple authors. Additionally, this does not appear to be an issue in another citation format (like APA).

Has anyone else encountered this behavior, or is there a known issue with the CSL file for Chicago 18th author–date? I’m wondering whether this might be a style bug or some kind of disambiguation rule being triggered incorrectly.

Thanks for any guidance.

dunning

This is a disambiguation mechanism. Chances are that you are citing another item by Ansell with a slightly different form of the name:

https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation

adamsmith

Can you confirm that this happens in a new document with just those two citations (i.e. Ansell et al. 2020 and Emerson et. al. 2021)?
Can you also confirm that it _doesn't_ happen if you just cite Ansell et al?