Author's Middle Initial: Period or No Period?

[maddz]

I think most styles guides say initials should have full stops because they are an abbreviation. However, I got into the habit of removing them way back when because certain programmes took the full stop as a new record indicator, and I have never re-acquired the habit.

I believe Jim Hines vs Jim C Hines would be a UK vs US thing; we tend not to use middle initials in the UK unless to distinguish between various authors sharing the same name (even then not guaranteed).

[theducks]

Originally Posted by maddz

I believe Jim Hines vs Jim C Hines would be a UK vs US thing; we tend not to use middle initials in the UK unless to distinguish between various authors sharing the same name (even then not guaranteed).

And that id the reason most of us SHOULD use them.
Tie breaking that share first Initials or first names.
I had to do similar with Series that had the same name but not in reality, the same authorial team (It is common in shared universes to have different writers for different stories. In this case, the series IS the same .)
when I discover differences, I simply add the creators initials eg (AN) for Andre Norton

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by maddz

. . .

we tend not to use middle initials in the UK unless to distinguish between various authors sharing the same name (even then not guaranteed).

Use of initials amongst UK writers used to be common: P.G. Wodehouse, W.H. Auden, G.K. Chesterton, A.A. Milne, D.H. Lawrence, A.D. Hope, C.S. Lewis, A.E. Housman, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot.

But the late A.S. Byatt and J.K. Rowling are the only recent 'initialled' UK writers who come to mind.

Hmmm, putting a space between the initials when writing those names in a sentence wouldn't 'feel' right. But when it's data I would use a space, e.g. "P. G. Wodehouse"… why's that I wonder.

BR

[Quoth]

And the K. in J. K. is fake! Stupid publisher.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by maddz

I believe Jim Hines vs Jim C Hines would be a UK vs US thing; we tend not to use middle initials in the UK unless to distinguish between various authors sharing the same name (even then not guaranteed).

I think so. I worked for an American for a short while and he wanted to invent a middle initial for my name on documents and was surprised I already had one, but didn't use it. My dad only used his middle initial if only using an initial for his surname. His friend rarely used all his initials, just putting "R", the full set was RAF.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Quoth

And the K. in J. K. is fake! Stupid publisher.

The K in JKR signifies a silent "Keith"

[mbovenka]

They don't really get the ide of a calling name either. My initials are M. C. and am called Marco, but that's not what the M stands for (it's Marinus). Confuses Americans (and American computer systems) no end.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I use period. Don't care whether there is a standard; I just like the initials to have periods.

The Quality Check plugin helps with formatting the initials in bulk, so there's no need to check the names one by one.

A reason not to use a period is that some middle names are just an initial. An example of this is President Harry S Truman. From what I understand, although the S may stand for different names, it was never settled on one so it's only an initial. My own middle name is just an initial so I write it without the period.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

A reason not to use a period is that some middle names are just an initial. An example of this is President Harry S Truman. From what I understand, although the S may stand for different names, it was never settled on one so it's only an initial. My own middle name is just an initial so I write it without the period.

This is the kind of trivia I like. Use a dot if it's an abbreviation of a name, but no dot if it IS the name.

B J Honeycutt, for a fictional example. Although I see that Wikipedia does not follow this sensible usage. Perhaps you could persuade the editors of that page to amend it?

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by Quoth

And the K. in J. K. is fake! Stupid publisher.

The reason that the publisher advised her not to use her first name was to hide the fact that she was female, with the theory being that young male readers might avoid the book because of that.

Now, I'm not saying that this change was the primary reason for the success of the book, but I'm pretty sure it didn't hurt the sales. So, the publisher was actually smart in looking out for the interests of an unknown author.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

The reason that the publisher advised her not to use her first name was to hide the fact that she was female, with the theory being that young male readers might avoid the book because of that.

Now, I'm not saying that this change was the primary reason for the success of the book, but I'm pretty sure it didn't hurt the sales. So, the publisher was actually smart in looking out for the interests of an unknown author.

This is not unusual. George Eliot, the writer of Silas Marner, is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. She adopted a male pen name to avoid the stereotype of the types of books that were written by female authors.

See the following link to a Wikipedia article about George Eliot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

They don't really get the ide of a calling name either. My initials are M. C. and am called Marco, but that's not what the M stands for (it's Marinus). Confuses Americans (and American computer systems) no end.

I thought a convention was to put the "go by name" (the name someone goes by) in quotation marks within the name. So you have Montgomery "Scotty" Scott and Richard "Dick" Grayson.

[Quoth]

E. E. "Doc" Smith.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

This is not unusual. George Eliot, the writer of Silas Marner, is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. She adopted a male pen name to avoid the stereotype of the types of books that were written by female authors.

That was the 19th C.

It was unusual by the latter 20th C. Though the publisher insisted on Carolyn Janice Cherry using initials and an h to C. J. Cherryh! Plenty of famous female first name Authors by 1980s. Dodie Smith, Helen MacInnes, Anne McCaffery and Ursula Le Guin (Earthsea was a school text in Ireland before Harry Potter was written). Even Enid Blyton's Famous Five, or Five Finder Outers as much read by boys. But why the insistence on a 2nd fake initial?
Publisher misogyny.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by maddz

I think most styles guides say initials should have full stops because they are an abbreviation. However, I got into the habit of removing them way back when because certain programmes took the full stop as a new record indicator, and I have never re-acquired the habit.

I believe Jim Hines vs Jim C Hines would be a UK vs US thing; we tend not to use middle initials in the UK unless to distinguish between various authors sharing the same name (even then not guaranteed).

I would go with what the author goes with.

And it would be Jim C. Hines, not Jim C Hines.