[Tex/LaTex] Bibliography with BibLaTeX: Do not abbreviate first given (first) name and abbreviate all further given names

biberbiblatex

The first given name of an author or editor in my bibliography should be written out, but all further first names should be abbreviated (initials with a period — and space if there are multiple first names/initials, see below). I am using style=authoryear with BibLaTeX (v. 2.7) and Biber (v. 1.7).

My bibliography looks like this:

Doe, John Arthur Kyle (2013). The secret life of John Doe.

It should look like this:

Doe, John A. K. (2013). The secret life of John Doe.

Minimal example:

example.tex

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[babel,german=quotes]{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=authoryear]{biblatex}
\bibliography{bibliography}

\begin{document}

\cite[123]{Doe}
\printbibliography

\end{document}

bibliography.bib

@book{Doe,
    title = {The secret life of John Doe},
    author = {Doe, John Arthur Kyle},
    year = {2013}
}

(Worked with said versions of BibLaTeX and Biber, Texmaker (v. 4.0.3) and MiKTeX (v. 2.9.4813).)

I could not find a solution in biblatex.def and firstinits=true abbreviates all first names, including the first one.

Best Answer

As biblatex does not distinguish multiple first names, we need to split this list ourselves:

\makeatletter
\def\@empty{}
\def\first#1{\expandafter\@first#1 \@nil}
\def\@first#1 #2\@nil{#1\addspace%
  \if\relax\detokenize{#2}\relax\else\@initials#2\@nil\fi}
\def\initials#1{\expandafter\@initials#1 \@nil}
\def\@initials#1 #2\@nil{%
  \initial{#1}%
  \def\NextName{#2}%
  \ifx\@empty\NextName\relax%
  \else\@initials#2\@nil\fi}
\def\initial#1{\expandafter\@initial#1\@nil}
\def\@initial#1#2\@nil{#1.\addspace}
\makeatother

Now calling \first{John Arthur Kyle} yields "John A. K.".

The trick used is that the macro \first passes its argument to \@first which in turn delimits its arguments by spaces, i.e. #1 is "John" and #2 is "Arthur Kyle". This gets sent to \@initials which goes through the list of names (in case there are more or less than two) and calls \initial with each name. \initial in turn calls \@initial which throws away all but the first letter and adds a dot and a space.

Now we can use this in \DeclareNameFormat:

\def\bibnamedelima{ }%
\def\bibnamedelimb{ }%
\DeclareNameFormat{author}{%
  \ifblank{#5}{}{#5\addspace}% prefix if applicable
  #1% last name
  \edef\firstname{#3}%
  \ifblank{#3}{}{\addcomma\addspace\expandafter\first{\firstname}}%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}<\value{liststop}}%
   {\addslash}{}%
}

Note that for author = {Doe, John Arthur Kyle} in the bib file, #3 actually consists of John\bibnamedelimb Arthur\bibnamedelima Kyle, so we need to eliminate these for the \first macro to work.

EDIT: a "proper" NameFormat should include deliminators for multiple names, thus we check if we are in the middle of a list of names and if so print a slash.

Additionally, the authoryear style uses labelname to display the author name in citations, so that format should be changed to keep the formatting of the citation in line with that of the bibliography entry:

\DeclareNameFormat{labelname}{%
  \ifblank{#5}{}{#5\addspace}% prefix if applicable
  #1% last name
  \edef\firstname{#3}%
  \ifblank{#3}{}{\addcomma\addspace\expandafter\first{\firstname}}%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}<\value{liststop}}%
   {\addslash}{}%
}

To summarize: This code

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\usepackage[backend=biber,style=authoryear]{biblatex}
\bibliography{bibliography}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\def\bibnamedelima{ }%
\def\bibnamedelimb{ }%
\DeclareNameFormat{author}{%
  \ifblank{#5}{}{#5\addspace}% prefix if applicable
  #1% last name
  \edef\firstname{#3}%
  \ifblank{#3}{}{\addcomma\addspace\expandafter\first{\firstname}}%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}<\value{liststop}}%
   {\addslash}{}%
}

\DeclareNameFormat{labelname}{%
  \ifblank{#5}{}{#5\addspace}% prefix if applicable
  #1% last name
  \edef\firstname{#3}%
  \ifblank{#3}{}{\addcomma\addspace\expandafter\first{\firstname}}%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}<\value{liststop}}%
   {\addslash}{}%
}

\makeatletter
\def\@empty{}
\def\first#1{\expandafter\@first#1 \@nil}
\def\@first#1 #2\@nil{#1\addspace%
  \if\relax\detokenize{#2}\relax\else\@initials#2\@nil\fi}
\def\initials#1{\expandafter\@initials#1 \@nil}
\def\@initials#1 #2\@nil{%
  \initial{#1}%
  \def\NextName{#2}%
  \ifx\@empty\NextName\relax%
  \else\@initials#2\@nil\fi}
\def\initial#1{\expandafter\@initial#1\@nil}
\def\@initial#1#2\@nil{#1.\addspace}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\cite[123]{Doe}\par
\cite[124]{Doe2}\par
\cite[125]{vD}
\printbibliography

\end{document}

together with this bib file:

@book{Doe,
    title = {The secret life of John Doe},
    author = {Doe, John Arthur Kyle and Jane Emma Dane and Someone Else},
    year = {2013}
}

@book{Doe2,
    title = {The secret life of John Doe 2},
    author = {Doe, John},
    year = {2013}
}

@book{vD,
    title = {The secret life of John von Doe},
    author = {John Arthur Kyle von Doe},
    year = {2013}
}

produces this output:

cropped pdf output

EDIT: For more details on splitting strings, see e.g. the answers to this question; for information on macros using "strange" argument delimiters, see e.g. this thread.

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