Upgrade StorageFeature Request: separate field for particles in creator names.
Zotero has no structured way of dealing with particles in names such as van, van den, von, de, di and d’, which are part of the family name but are not capitalised or taken into account when making an alphabetical list.
My request is that Zotero have a separate field for particles in the Creator name, in addition to ‘first name’ and ‘last name’. This would allow for more control over how they are sorted and capitalised.
I am aware of previous discussions on this topic ...
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/330009#Comment_330009
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/79177/csl-text-case-of-particles/p1
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/375799#Comment_375799
... so there are workarounds. Mine is to put the particles in the first name fields after the actual first name. So, Theo van Doesburg is ‘Doesburg, Theo van’ although in the text of my thesis I would call him ‘van Doesburg’. The ‘van’ is never capitalised in Dutch and van Doesburg would appear under D in a Dutch phone book, so this works for me. This method works well for most cases, Lucrezia di Domizio is ‘Domizio, Lucrezia di’ although she is called ‘di Domizio’ in the text and Wolf von Engelhardt (Engelhardt, Wolf von) will appear in alphabetical lists under ‘E’ but will be called ‘von Engelhardt’.
I was pleased to find that this works (at least with MHRA style) even in cases where the French or Italian ‘de’ or ‘di’ is contracted to d’ and written with no space before a name that starts with a vowel. If I enter Stephanie d’Alessandro as ‘Alessandro Stephanie d’’ she appears alphabetically under A and is correctly cited with no space:
For Celtic names that start with Mc or Mac but are written as one word, I include that in the surname (McFarlane, John), so they sort under M. There is a minor problem here that, contrary to the MHRA style guide, Zotero sorts the Macs before the Mcs. The MHRA style guide specifies that they should all be sorted like ‘Mac’. This is not important to me, but in a feature request, some users might want that.
My request is that Zotero have a separate field for particles in the Creator name, in addition to ‘first name’ and ‘last name’. This would allow for more control over how they are sorted and capitalised.
I am aware of previous discussions on this topic ...
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/330009#Comment_330009
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/79177/csl-text-case-of-particles/p1
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/375799#Comment_375799
... so there are workarounds. Mine is to put the particles in the first name fields after the actual first name. So, Theo van Doesburg is ‘Doesburg, Theo van’ although in the text of my thesis I would call him ‘van Doesburg’. The ‘van’ is never capitalised in Dutch and van Doesburg would appear under D in a Dutch phone book, so this works for me. This method works well for most cases, Lucrezia di Domizio is ‘Domizio, Lucrezia di’ although she is called ‘di Domizio’ in the text and Wolf von Engelhardt (Engelhardt, Wolf von) will appear in alphabetical lists under ‘E’ but will be called ‘von Engelhardt’.
I was pleased to find that this works (at least with MHRA style) even in cases where the French or Italian ‘de’ or ‘di’ is contracted to d’ and written with no space before a name that starts with a vowel. If I enter Stephanie d’Alessandro as ‘Alessandro Stephanie d’’ she appears alphabetically under A and is correctly cited with no space:
For Irish names such as O’Connell, I do not separate the O’ as a particle because the convention is that these are sorted under O. The apostrophe means they come before any names that start Oco… That is fine by me, but if there is a particle feature request, some users might want more control of that.Doe, John, and Stephanie d’Alessandro, ‘Test title 1’, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 28.1 (2002), 66
For Celtic names that start with Mc or Mac but are written as one word, I include that in the surname (McFarlane, John), so they sort under M. There is a minor problem here that, contrary to the MHRA style guide, Zotero sorts the Macs before the Mcs. The MHRA style guide specifies that they should all be sorted like ‘Mac’. This is not important to me, but in a feature request, some users might want that.