Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 October 23

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October 23

Alphabetization question

For Wikipedia purposes ... should Leslie Van Houten be alphabetized as "Van Houten, Leslie" or "Houten, Leslie van"? Is her name alphabetized under "H" or under "V"? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:12, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:MCSTJR it's sorted under "V": "American, Australian, Canadian, and English names generally sort on the prefix, regardless of capitalization." If you look at the source of Leslie Van Houten, you'll notice that there is a DEFAULTSORT near the end which follows this convention. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:30, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

See Tussenvoegsel for some of the possible complexities in some cases (but Wrongfilter is right for Wikipedia)... AnonMoos (talk) 17:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

On the other hand, Ricky Van Shelton is alphabetized by "S" as "Van" is actually his middle name. That is, he is from the "Shelton" family not the "Van Shelton" family. --Khajidha (talk) 17:31, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh my, what a mess. Here's the quote from the linked guideline:

Generally, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish names do not include lowercase particles in sorting, but do include uppercase particles. For example, Otto von Bismarck is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Bismarck, Otto von}}, Jean de La Fontaine is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:La Fontaine, Jean de}}, and Alberto Di Chiara is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Di Chiara, Alberto}}.

It strikes me that whether the particle is rendered as minuscule or majuscule is a pretty shifty way to decide this, given that the same individual might do it sometimes one way and sometimes the other.

But interestingly, this gives that John von Neumann should be treated as Neumann, John von, which is an option that has definitely been used at times, but I'm not sure it will be the most intuitive alphabetization for the bulk of Wikipedia users. --Trovatore (talk) 01:01, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

In a technical TPO violation, I edited User:Trovatore's edit of 01:01, 26 October above to show the DEFAULTSORT examples that you intended to. Mathglot (talk) 00:54, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Not a problem; thanks for fixing the red error messages. --Trovatore (talk) 01:46, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Resolved