Sorting compound names

[Erik Mueller-Harder]

On Sep 18, 2004, at 08:03, jda wrote:

> New question (especially to other developers who deal with German and 
> Dutch):
>
> In some languages compound surnames are sorted by the second word 
> (e.g. van Lanternan would be sorted with the L's)? Is there a way, in 
> a method, to have Valentina do such a sort (assuming one provided a 
> list of articles in the surname to ignore)? I can't think of a 
> straightfoward solution, but perhaps since this is a common problem 
> someone else on this list has solved it. Of course one could 
> post-process the Valentina sort (which is what I will probably try), 
> but it would be nice if that weren't necessary.

I've dealt with this before, and the further I delved into it the more 
I came to realize that the problem cannot be solved computationally at 
all.  Well, I should qualify that first by agreeing that it might be 
possible in some culturally and linguistically "pure" backwater 
somewhere that rules and customs for family names were consistent 
enough to be codified.  But as soon as you have multiple countries, 
cultures, languages, and even (yes!) the preferences of the individuals 
involved -- it becomes absolutely impossible to codify.

The only real solution is to have a separate field for full-name 
sort-order, and then populate it manually -- or programatically -- but 
either way being prepared to make lots of corrections if people 
complain.

I've compiled a short list here of names, sorted "properly" according 
to examples in the _Chicago Manual of Style_ (entries 18.102 - 18.107). 
  I'm not in any way claiming that this is a definitive authority -- I'm 
merely suggesting that this is a *large* can of worms that you probably 
want to avoid opening if at all possible.  Again, this list is 
"correctly" sorted:

     Ap Ellis, Augustine
     Beethoven, Ludwig van
     Braun, Wernher von
     Campbell-Bannerman, Henry
     de Vere, Aubrey Thomas
     De Vries, Hugo
     Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-
     Fernández de Sandoval, José María
     al-Husayni, Ishaq
     Leguía y Salcedo, Agusto
     Lloyd George, David
     Mabie, Hamilton W.
     McAdoo, William G.
     MAcalister, Donald
     McAllister, Alister
     MacArthur, Douglas
     Macaulay, Rose
     McAuley, Catharine
     MacMillan, Donald B.
     Macmillan, Herold
     Mendes, Frederic de Sola
     Mendès-France, Pierre
     Mueller-Harder, Erik
     Ortega y Gasset, José
     Ramée, Marie Louise de la
     St. Denis, Ruth
     Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin
     Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
     St. Laurent, Louis Stephen
     Saint-Saëns, Camille
     Sánchez Mendoza, Jorge
     Esquivel de Sánchez, Maria
     Sánchez Esquivel, Juan
     Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre
     Torre Redondo, Cristóbal de
     Van Devanter, Willis
     Van Rensselaer, Stephen
     Vaughan Williams, Ralph