du Maurier, George? Or Maurier, George du?

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I'm sorry, GrannyGrump, I don't understand what you mean by 'First Name sorting'.

Surely not sorting by given name?

That's what the Kindle does if you have the names in the natural form FirstName LastName; it sorts by whatever is at the beginning. I went through and changed them all to be LastName, FirstName so that it sorted them properly. Then I got a Kobo which sorts them properly and had to put them back to the natural form.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

That's what the Kindle does if you have the names in the natural form FirstName LastName; it sorts by whatever is at the beginning. I went through and changed them all to be LastName, FirstName so that it sorted them properly. Then I got a Kobo which sorts them properly and had to put them back to the natural form.

Thanks. I haven't come across that problem.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Then I got a Kobo which sorts them properly and had to put them back to the natural form.

Except that the Kobo won't do the right thing with e.g. Chinese names where the "natural form" is "FamilyName GivenName", or double surnames, or de/von (depending on your preference). So what I did is creating a plugboard in calibre which transforms spaces in author_sort into no-break spaces, so the Kobo will be faced with "single word" names and won't try to be smart.

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I wonder whether it might be helpful to add a few words to the guidelines to cover how to deal with surnames like du Maurier and von Arnim, and whether du Maurier and von Arnim are preferred to Du Maurier and Von Arnim - and of course other similar names.

I don't think we have any policy in that respect (there's also the issue of "Sir", "Lord", "Baroness", "Mrs", "Saint", pseudonyms, etc.). And as I said, given that the current guidelines are often not obeyed or enforced, adding more to them would be rather pointless. If/when we change the forum and library system, we will probably try to be more consistent.

[Osazeng]

Please it Not english,, du Maurier, George? Or Maurier, George du?
i find it hard to understand

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by Osazeng

Please it Not english,, du Maurier, George? Or Maurier, George du?
i find it hard to understand

I did the original post to try to get authorative guidance on how to file books by George du Maurier in the MobileRead library.

At the time I was working on an ebook of a print book by the French author George du Maurier. I went in to the local library to see if they had any books by him. They didn't, but do have books by his grand-daughter, Daphne du Maurier. I looked for her books on the shelves with author's names starting with D, but found that they are placed in the shelves with author's names starting with M. That is, they are filed in the Launceston General Library as Maurier, Daphne du, rather then du Maurier, Daphne. If that library had books by George du Maurier they would have been filed as Maurier, George du rather than du Maurier, George.

I hope this makes sense to you, and helps you to understand the thread heading.