Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks
So Mark L. Van Name should be in the "N's"?
is there a difference when the case of 'van' changes?
A. E. van Vogt <it still sorts in V  , just moves down the list)
what about Vandyke or is it VanDyke', just no space? sort on the V or D? |
This is a very complicated subject.
Whether or not the "van" is part of the last name in general depends on whether or not the name is "noble". The same is true for "von", "de" "de la", "della", and a host of other prefixes.
In French (at least), case matters. In a noble name the prefix is lower case and can often be translated as "of" or "from". For example, Jean de Perdu is a noble name where "Perdu" is the ancestral seat of the family -- "John of Lost". In this case the name is sorted under "P". In a common name, the prefix is upper case and can often be translated as "the". For example, Jean De Perdu could be translated as "John The Lost", and is sorted under "D".
Making things even more complicated, some people with noble names don't want to use them and therefore use the other rule when alphabetizing their name. And of course, the inverse is true.
If you want some fun, look at the controversy over whether the famous French general's name is spelled Charles de Gaulle or Charles De Gaulle.
Bottom line: without knowing where the name came from you cannot know whether the prefix goes with the name or not. IMO, the best way to resolve the issue is to look at how the person wrote it, especially if you can find an alphabetized list ordered by that person (e.g., a list of authors for a paper or a book). Second would be to look at how the name is indexed in a large library.
Add to the above the facts that the "noble" prefix is language dependent, and that in some cultures one writes names naturally as LN FN (e.g., Chinese names such as Sun Tzu or Li Mei-Hua), one finds no rule that covers all the cases. If I have any doubt, I check and fix the name manually.