Abbreviated names appear in two basic forms:
- <Last Name>, <Initials>
- <Last Name> <Initials>
(The only real difference is the comma.)
When parsing an abbreviated name, it is first split into one or two tokens, depending on what data was supplied. The first token is always considered to be the last name (PERSON.FAMILY_NAME). If a second token is supplied, it is considered to be the initials. The first character of this token is capitalized and treated as the first initial (PERSON.FIRST_INITIAL). Any subsequent characters of this token are capitalized and treated as the middle initial(s) (PERSON.MIDDLE_INITIAL).
All values that end up in PERSON.UNSPLIT_NAME as a result of this loader are converted to a canonical form, which is of the form:
- <Last Name>, <Initials>
Note: Titles such as Mr., Ms., Mrs., etc are not directly supported, in that there are no special parsing rules to handle them.
See AUTHORS, EDITORS, PERSON, REFERENCE, and How Full Names are Parsed.