[OS X TeX] MacOSX-TeX Digest, Vol 88, Issue 7

[Berend Hasselman]

> On 12-02-2015, at 11:18, Henk Verkuyl <hjv1 at mac.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Herb and/or Dick,
> 
> I have a question about the Dutch ‘van’ in names like Johan van Benthem and Michiel van Lambalgen.
> 
> Suppose I want to have:
> 
> Benthem, J. van
> 
> Then in my Bibdesk, I have
> 
> Benthem, Johan van
> 
> and in the case of co-authorship:
> 
> Lambalgen, Michiel van and Fritz Hamm.
> 
> Natbib takes care of changing Johan to J. and Michiel to M and Fritz to F..
> 
> However, it also changes ‘van’ into “v.’ Which I do not want to have.
> 
> I have tried:
> 
> Lambalgen, ({Michiel} van
> 
> Lambalgen, ({Michiel} {van}
> 
> Lambalgen, ({Michiel van}
> 
> but that doesn’t make a change. Is there any way to get:
> 
> Lambalgen, M. van and F. Hamm
> Benthem, J. van
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> 
> Henk Verkuyl
> 

Let’s start by assuming that I’m not making a fool of myself with this reply.

It’s the .bst that takes care of all this sort of thing. 

The “van" is a so-called von part and is treated specially.

In the .bst there should be a function format.names which will (I hope) contain something like this:

        { "{ll}{, f{.}.}{~v}{, jj}” } or possibly  { "{ll}{, f{.}.}{~v.}{, jj}" }

The “v” could also be “vv”.

If you change that to this you should get what you want

        { "{ll}{, f{.}.}{~vv}{, jj}” }

At least that has worked for me in the past. I have no idea whether it still works.

Send a question to the NTG Tex mailing list (see http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/tex-nl); probably the best thing to do.
In TeXLive there is a nederlands.bst which may do what you want.

And have a look at http://www.ntg.nl/bijeen/pdf-s.20031113/BibTeX-tutorial.pdf especially the last sheet named “BST hacking”.
Also see this discussion: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.text.tex/pQCPH3fwGSE

You could also try to extend merlin.mbs with some new options.
Or send a mail to the author of natbib and merlin.mbs with a request to add an additional option specifying the formatting of the “von” part.

Good luck.

Berend Hasselman