Displaying first author's name in a bibliographic entry in the form: Surname, Initials and co-authors in the form: Initials, Surname

Question

I would like to format my references according to the following specifications:

Author: Surname, Initials, Co-authors: Initials, Surname

I am using natbib, abbrvnat for bibliography style and I guess I have to edit the .bst file (FUNCTION {format.names}).

I would appreciate if someone could help me with this or recommend something else.

Answer 1

To get the desired ordering of authors' first and last names, I suggest you do the following:

• Find the file abbrvnat.bst in your TeX distribution. Make a copy of this file and name the copy, say, myabbrvnat.bst. (Don't edit a file from the TeX distribution directly.

• Open the file myabbrvnat.bst in a text editor; the editor you use to edit your tex files will do fine.

• Find the function format.names in the file. (In my copy of the file, this function starts on line 216. Delete all 27 or so lines of function; the last line will contain just a right curly brace, }.

• Insert the following code chunk in the place of the deleted function:

  FUNCTION {format.names}
  { duplicate$ empty$ 'skip$ {
    's :=
    "" 't :=
    #1 'nameptr :=
    s num.names$ 'numnames :=
    numnames 'namesleft :=
      { namesleft #0 > }
      { s nameptr
        duplicate$ #1 >
          { "{f.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" }
          { "{vv~}{ll}{, f.}{, jj}" }
        if$
        format.name$
        't :=
        nameptr #1 >
          {
            namesleft #1 >
              { ", " * t * }
              {
                s nameptr "{ll}" format.name$ duplicate$ "others" =
                  { 't := }
                  { pop$ }
                if$
                "," *
                t "others" =
                  { " et~al." * }
                  { " " * t * }
                if$
              }
            if$
          }
          't
        if$
        nameptr #1 + 'nameptr :=
        namesleft #1 - 'namesleft :=
      }
    while$
    } if$
  }
  

  Do note that I've interpreted your specification as indicating that there should be no "and" connector word before the final author in the author list.

• Save the file myabbrvnat.bst, either in the directory where your main tex file is located or in a folder that's searched by BibTeX. If you choose the latter method, be sure to udpate the filename database of your TeX distribution appropriately.

• Start using the new bibliography style by replacing the instruction \bibliographystyle{abbrvnat} with \bibliographystyle{myabbrvnat}. Be sure to run LaTeX, BibTeX, and LaTeX twice more to fully propagate all changes.

Here's an example file:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{myabbrvnat}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{mybib.bib}
@article{abc,
  author    = "Anna Anderson and Brenda Branson and Carla Carlson",
  title     = "Random thoughts",
  journal   = "Circularity Today",
  year      = 3001,
  volume    = 1,
  number    = 1,
  pages     = "1-100",
}
\end{filecontents*}

\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\bibliography{mybib}
\end{document}