How to deal with an author who uses several names

[Chris]

I've come across an author who, when checking the book covers, has used three different variations of his name.

Most of the books are published using:
Yohuru Williams

But he has also used:
Yohuru Rashied Williams
Yohuru R. Williams

I not very confident in dealing with issues like this. Can I check that I've read the Librarians' Manual correctly - I should keep separate entries for all three versions of the author's name but link the three profiles?

The Manual mentions an About Me section on the author profile to link separate profiles. I can't seem to see it. Would someone point me in the right direction.

Thanks

[Chris]

Thanks very much for the responses. They are really helpful and I’m much clearer now on what to do. The similar names section looks really useful.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

C. wrote: "We would merge them all into the longest version. The one that encompasses all the names."

While this is certainly the way to go when an author uses multiple variants on editions of the same work, or goes back and forth between variants on different books, it's not necessarily the way to go if an author primarily publishes under one of the shorter versions almost exclusively and only has one or two works that use the longer name. I would not suggest undoing what was done here. But if dealing with a similar author, I would look carefully at whether almost all the books used the shorter name.

It's also a good idea to check whether the different variants are being used to deliberately separate works in different genres. (Probably not the case here, but definitely the case with some other authors. In one well-known author's case, fiction books have the middle initial and non-fiction do not. Or maybe it's the other way around. But regardless, we would avoid merging all versions of his name into the one with the initial.)

[Keith]

rivka wrote: "…check whether the different variants are being used to deliberately separate works in different genres."

Can I presume that is policy (at at least strongly recommend) that, upon discovering such an exceptional case, Librarian Notes should be added to each such profile to indicate the pattern being used with cross-links between the profiles? Or is there some other more-or-less canonical means or plan for communicating this before another well-meaning librarian comes along and "helpfully" merges the profiles that were carefully left sorted and unmerged?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Notes for such cases would certainly be recommended.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

This author is a good example of one who used an initial for one genre and no initial for another. I link the combine page because the do not combine notes show there.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/combin...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/combin...

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Yes, perfect example. Thanks!