Surnames (Hispanic-Spanish authors)

[[deleted user]]

I have noticed (my bookshelf) that many hispanic or spanish authors who have two lastnames (father's and mother's) are listed by the second lastname (mother's one).
For example, at my bookshelf Gabriel García Márquez appears:
Márquez, Gabriel García
but García is in fact his first lastname not a middle name.
I don't know if this can be fixed or if this is really important, but I have realized it happens with most of hispanic authors: Alfredo Bryce Echenique (Bryce is his first lastname). Maybe the solution is to place a - between the two last names (that's what I did while in England/US).

[Moloch]

Sadly this can't be fixed at the moment: this happens with authors that have two (or more) last names, the first one is wrongly considered the middle name. If you put a - in between you'll create another profile, I don't think this is a good solution.

I really hate the wrong sorting that this causes, and hope someday we'll have the "sort by" for authors to fix this.

[Moloch]

Just today I was thinking to open a thread to remind the staff of two much needed features that would really enhance the cataloguing service, this "sort by" for authors and the AKA feature, to group different spellings of names in one author profile, so that everyone could have the authors' names in their language/alphabet in their libraries without creating different profiles. LibraryThing has both of them.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks for the reply. It is not a big deal, anyway. In fact, today is the first time I noticed it :)

[Moloch]

For me it is :-D

[vicki_girl]

Even people in the US have this problem. I hate that Ursula K. Le Guin is sorted as Guin, Ursula K. Le, ~shudder~

[[deleted user]]

I know that even people in the US have this problem, but I talked about Spanish-Hispanic authors because they are not the exception but the rule! Maybe we could find a solution soon for all of them :)

[Mel]

A possible solution could be that the author field would be split in two spaces: one for the name and one for the last name. That way the you can write two last names in the same space without the system confusing them.

[[deleted user]]

I was thinking about something like that, but I wonder if as Moloch was saying before about my idea with the - that would end up creating double profiles for authors.

[Ivonne]

Moloch wrote: "Sadly this can't be fixed at the moment: this happens with authors that have two (or more) last names, the first one is wrongly considered the middle name. If you put a - in between you'll create a..."

As a temporary fix, could the patronym (father's last name) and the matronym be joined by a hyphen? I have seen this done elsewhere. Therefore, Gabriel García Marquez would appear as Gabriel García-Márquez, which, I think, would make his true last name appear by default.

That's not really the "correct way" to do it, of course; however, defaulting to the matronym is even more wrong and must be messing up searches.

I would happily volunteer to "fix" the usual suspects: Gabriel García Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, José Asunción Silva, Fernanda López Aguilar, Juan García Ponce, et al.

[Moloch]

Rivka and others from GR staff should answer; personally, I wouldn't like it as a fix, however temporary, because, while now it's "only" the sorting that's wrong, this way we would be writing wrong the name itself. And then, when (if?) a better way to sort these names will be available, we would have to find these edited names and re-correct them.

But I don't decide so, if someone says it should be the way to do it, I'd help

[Emy]

Added to that, next time a book by that author is added or imported, it would have to be 'corrected' to this hyphenated version... Seems to be making a lot more work all around for a filing issue?

[Andrea]

I don't like the workaround. I have 2 last names, not one combined last name. Adding an artificial hyphen won't solve the problem in the long run...

It would be nice if authors could've been added in the "last, first" format in the first place, but a more permanent fix should be considered.

[rivka, Librarian Moderator]

There should only be a hyphen if that is how the author publishes.