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— section: Bibliographies and citations subsection: Creating bibliographies permalink: /FAQ-bibtranscinit date: 2014-06-10 —

# Multi-letter initials in BibTeX

If your bibliographic style uses initials + surname, you may encounter a problem with some transcribed names (for example, Russian ones). Consider the following example from the real world: ```bibtex @article{epifanov1997,

 author = {Epifanov, S. Yu. and Vigasin, A. A.},
 title  = ...

} ``` Note that the Yu is the initial, not a complete name. However, BibTeX's algorithms will leave you with a citation — slightly depending on the bibliographic style — that reads: S. Y. Epifanov and A. A. Vigasin, …. instead of the intended S. Yu. Epifanov and A. A. Vigasin, ….

One solution is to replace each affected initial by a command that prints the correct combination. To keep your bibliography portable, you need to add that command to your bibliography with the `@preamble` directive: ```bibtex @preamble{ {\providecommand{\BIBYu}{Yu} } }

@article{epifanov1997,

 author   = {Epifanov, S. {\BIBYu}. and Vigasin, A. A.},
 title    = ...

} ``` If you have many such commands, you may want to put them in a separate file and `\input` that LaTeX file in a `@preamble` directive.

An alternative is to make the transcription look like an accent, from BibTeX's point of view. For this we need a control sequence that does nothing: ```bibtex @article{epifanov1997,

 author   = {Epifanov, S. {\relax Yu}. and Vigasin, A. A.},
 title    = ...

} ``` Like the solution by generating extra commands, this involves tedious extra typing; which of the two techniques is preferable for a given bibliography will be determined by the names in it. It should be noted that a preamble that introduces lots of odd commands is usually undesirable if the bibliography is a shared one.

Compound initials (for single names made up of two or more words) may be treated in the same way, so one can enter Forster's rather complicated name as: ```bibtex @article{forster2006,

author   = {Forster, P.M. {\relax de F.} and Collins, M.},
title    = ...

``` The same trick can be played if you're entering whole names: ```latex …

author   = {Epifanov, Sasha {\relax Yu}ri and

… ``` (though no guarantee, that either of those names is right, is offered!) However, if you're typing the names in the natural (Western) way, with given names first, the trick: ```bibtex …

author   = {P.M. {\relax de F.} Forster and

… ``` doesn't work — de F. Forster is treated as a compound family names.