[Tex/LaTex] How to correctly typeset an author’s two-word last name in BibTeX

Question

Using BibTeX, I would like to cite a paper by an author whose last name has two words. The reason why this is an issue is that if I just write Jan A. Van Mieghem in the author field of the .bib file, BibTeX will treat "Mieghem" as the last name and "Jan A. Van" as the first name, which isn't correct. I have seen two ways of correcting this:

Jan A. {Van Mieghem} and Van Mieghem, Jan A.

Are these two handled the same by BibTeX? If not, what is the difference, and which one should be preferred?

Answer 1

First, some examples of names with Two-word surnames

Charles De Gaulle
Martin Van Buren
Kristin Scott Thomas
Helena Bonham Carter
Antonio Garcia Pascual
Marco Del Negro
Vincent Van Gogh
Piero Della Francesca [also written as "Piero della Francesca"]

(In case you're curious: The first two are former Presidents of their respective countries; the middle two are actresses; the next two are professional economists; and the final two are painters. Vincent, hopefully, needs no special introduction...)

With all of these names, it would be quite wrong (i) to typeset their names as C. D. Gaulle, M. V. Buren, K. S. Thomas, etc. or (ii) to generate citation call-outs of the form "Negro and Pascual 2015". (Correct: Del Negro and Garcia Pascual 2015.)

To inform BibTeX that it's not dealing with authors (or editors...) with one first name, one middle name (De, Van, Scott, Bonham, etc), and one surname and, instead, with authors/editors that all have one first name and a two-word surname, the names should be entered into the author and editor fields either as (using commas)

De Gaulle, Charles
Van Buren, Martin
Scott Thomas, Kristin
Bonham Carter, Helena
Garcia Pascual, Antonio
Del Negro, Marco
Van Gogh, Vincent
Della Francesca, Piero

or as (using curly braces)

Charles {De Gaulle}
Martin {Van Buren}
Kristin {Scott Thomas}
Helena {Bonham Carter}
Antonio {Garcia Pascual}
Marco {Del Negro}
Vincent {Van Gogh}
Piero {Della Francesca}

I personally prefer the first of the two possibilities.

Turning to the final part of your query: Both Jan A. {Van Mieghem} and Van Mieghem, Jan A. are syntacically correct, in the sense that BibTeX has enough information to figure out what the surname component is. That said, I personally prefer the second form, viz., Van Mieghem, Jan A..

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Aside: Note that the case of names containing a two-word surname is quite distinct from the case of names that contain a "von component" and a single-word surname.