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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 -- Markus Hoenicka [log in to unmask] (Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka") http://www.mhoenicka.de