Librarian last name issue

[Michael]

http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/... is the author Ken La Salle. On his "read" shelf, his name appears as "Salle, Ken La." Is there a way to get this to show up as "La Salle, Ken"?


Is this a common problem with authors? I'm not sure if we need code changes to fix this problem and what the best way to approach solving this is.

[Melody]

It's a problem with any author with a double last name and especially for any Jrs and Srs and III. Maybe there could be some sort of keyboard stroke we could use that would create a hard space that would be read like a character?

[mlady_rebecca]

Yes, that is a common problem with authors who have anything other than a singular last name with no spaces in it. As Melody mentioned, it also happens with people with Jr or Sr added after their last name.

As far as I know, the only way you could work around that error would be to compress "La Salle" to "LaSalle".

And, if I recall correctly, this also gives problems with languages where the first name and last name are reversed in normal usage.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

This has been a huge problem for a very long time. I always though the PTB were aware of it but had fixing it as a low priority. There are two potential solutions as I see it. 1) Have separate fields for first and last name; 2) Have an author sort field (just like the title sort field). For a variety of reasons I think the second will work better.

As already stated, it occurs with every author who has Jr. or Sr. or III (etc.) after their name and every author with a compound last name, which includes famous authors such as Ursula Le Guin and a huge number of hispanic authors (among others).

[Michael]

We still might not take action soon, but I'm trying to understand the problem better and make more GR employees aware of it.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Out of curiosity, I skimmed through all of the author's on my shelves. Here are the ones I spotted who I believe are in the wrong order (those followed by ??? are the ones where I'm uncertain of the correct last name):

* Ursula K. Le Guin
* D.W. St. John
* C.H. Edwards Jr.
* Charles V. Covell Jr.
* James Tiptree Jr.
* John Janovy Jr.
* L.E. Modesitt Jr.
* L.G. Wade Jr.
* Neal Barrett Jr.
* Walter M. Miller Jr.
* Charles de Lint
* Eric Van Lustbader (???)
* Daphne du Maurier (???)
* Giorgio De Santillana
* John Maynard Smith
* Lawrence Johnson Sr.
* Guillermo del Toro (???)
* Janwillem van de Wetering
* Louis de Bernières (???)
* Jean Baptiste Cousin de Grainville (???)
* Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
* Greg Van Eekhout (???)
* A.E. van Vogt

Again, this is just from my own personal shelf list.

[Marisa]

The authors I've checked (Eric Van Lustbader, Guillermo del Toro, Louis de Bernières, Greg Van Eekhout) are OK: Van, de and del don't belong to the surname according to their language rules. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra is wrong, yes, because, in Spain, we have two surnames: the right form would be "Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de"