Bruce D'Arcus writes:
 > Yeah, so in this case the "middle" name functions as a "first" name!
 > What a mess (and that not even considering non-Western names)...
 >

Yes I know. The only good reason to use "first" and "middle" as
descriptors is that they are short. I don't know better names in
English. The German language has the concept of the "Rufname" which is
the one given name used to address a person in an informal
conversation or in a personal letter.

 > My own (no doubt weak) solution is still to abbreviate those names in my
 > metadata that can be, and to not abbreviate those that can't (in a style
 > that does not abbreviate). So:
 >
 >   <namePart type="given">Franklin</namePart>
 >   <namePart type="given">D.</namePart>
 >
 > and...
 >
 >   <namePart type="given">S.</namePart>
 >   <namePart type="given">Michael</namePart>
 >

This way you lose information.

 > I would never use a style that requires the secondary-level name to be
 > spelled out in full though.  They do exist, however, which strikes me as
 > a little silly.
 >

Sure it is. But if you want to publish in one of these journals the
style is not at your discretion.

 > Actually, come to think of it, perhaps the above ought to be:
 >
 >   <namePart type="given">S. Michael</namePart>
 >
 > Still not ideal, though, but a processor could interpret it as saying
 > "treat this name part as a complete entity for formatting."
 >

This basically means mixing structure and formatting. SGML and XML
were developed to separate the data proper from the formatting. This
is why I don't think the above is an ideal solution.

regards,
Markus

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Markus Hoenicka
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