On 1 August 2012 23:55, Alex Fink <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> Yeah, I can see this as fitting with my analysis: the "Vegt: in "van der
> Vegt" is marked as title-case, and letter case is unmarked on "van der".
>  The fact that 'Mr. Van der Vegt' is the correct capitalisation, though, is
> harder to account for.  I suppose it's also 'Van der Vegt' when there's no
> honorific preceding, e.g. 'the Van der Vegt family'.
>
> Alex
>

Basically, it's to have an automated disambiguation in some rare but
inevitable cases. As an example, since 'van der' and similar surname parts
often precede geographical sites, including cities, it is entirely possible
that you'd have a person whose surname is 'Van <city>' who is a mayor of a
different city. To call that guy 'Burgemeester van <city>' could (without
this rule) be understood to mean both 'Mayor of <city>' and 'Mayor <the
guy's surname>', with the rule, 'Burgemeester van <city>' can only refer to
the Mayor of the city, as it would have been 'Mayor Van <city>' if they
were referring to the mayor of the different city who just happened to be
named after <city> due to ancestry.

There are other cases that could cause confusion, but by making sure a
name's first character is always capitalized, the potential for confusion
is minimalized.

On 2 August 2012 00:01, Roger Mills <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> --- On Wed, 8/1/12, G. van der Vegt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> The English speaking world has a heavy tendency of erroneously capitalizing
> my surname (or leaving out spaces that are an important part of the name.)
>
> 'G. van der Vegt', 'Mr. Van der Vegt', and 'Vegt, G. van der' are correct;
> 'Mr. van der Vegt', 'Mr. Van Der Vegt', 'G. Van der Vegt', 'G. Vandervegt',
> 'G. Van Der Vegt', 'Vegt, G. Van Der', et cetera are not.
> ===========================================
>
> I'm glad to see that--in my work with  Indonesian materials I encounter a
> lot of Dutch names van XXX, van der XXXX, de XXX etc. and have always
> wonder what the correct way to enter them in a bibliography is. I see here
> (and from previous experience,) that 'Vegt, G. van der' is the most common
> way.
>
> I do wonder if the name [First name] Josselin de Jong (a real scholar)
> should be listed under "Josselin de Jong, NAME" or as "Jong, NAME Josselin
> de".. what's your opinion?. Of course I  could look it up in some book, but
> am pressed for time just now......
>

Taking into account that this is an unfamiliar name and that I have only a
basic googling behind my belt to find a few names matching the pattern, my
gut instinct suggests two alternatives.

Josselin de Jong, [First name] de
Jong, [First name] de Josselin de

Looking at them, the former seems more likely applicable, since what I can
find suggests that the family name is 'De Josselin de Jong' and since
Josselin comes before Jong in the name, it would be indexed by Josselin
first. (Much like how a married woman with a hyphenated name (Say
'Smith-Baker') would be indexed by the first of the two names first.)

Note that this is a gut instinct, that this is an unusual case, and I'm not
anywhere near a position of authority on this. All I have to claim for
authority on Dutch naming is that I am a native speaker with a surname that
has some idiosyncrasies that are uncommon in English.