biblatex includes redundant author initials

Question

I'm using biblatex and \textcite, and most citations are appearing correctly with author initials appearing only when needed for disambiguation. But for just a few authors, the initials are always appearing even though the author names are unique. I checked that all my bibtex files cite these troublesome authors in exactly the same way. The surnames are unusual and I am sure they are unique in my bibtex files. What could cause this?

I have found that it only happens to entries which have a shorthand prefixed to them in the bibliography. E.g. the name Mawer triggers the problem in this entry:

PN Sx 1 = Mawer, Allen, F. M. Stenton, and with J. E. B. Gover (1929), The place-names of Sussex, part 1, vol. VI, The rapes of Chichester, Arundel and Bramber, Cambridge: English Place-Name Society

The shorthand prefix is created with this code:

\renewcommand*{\postnotedelim}{\addcolon\space}
\AtEveryBibitem{%
  \iffieldundef{shorthand}{}
    {\printfield{shorthand}\printtext{ = }}}

Here is an example:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[style=authoryear-comp,sorting=nyt,backref=true,useprefix=true,hyperref,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\renewcommand*{\postnotedelim}{\addcolon\space}
\AtEveryBibitem{%
  \iffieldundef{shorthand}{}
    {\printfield{shorthand}\printtext{ = }}}
\bibliography{%
bibtex/misc_place_names,%
bibtex/EPNS,%
}

\begin{document}
See \textcite{mawer-nth} and \textcite{epns-Bk}.
\printbibliography

\end{document}

It gives this output when the two entries are in different bibtex files, as in the code above:

See A. Mawer (1920) and Mawer and Stenton (PN Bk).

However, if I put the problem entries in a single bibtex file, the problem goes away.

These are the .bbl entries:

\refsection{0}
  \sortlist{entry}{nyt}
    \entry{mawer-nth}{book}{}
      \name{labelname}{1}{}{%
        {{uniquename=1,hash=20531a50f8126d9de20c019a74363211}{Mawer}{M\bibinitperiod}{Allen}{A\bibinitperiod}{}{}{}{}}%
      }
      \name{author}{1}{}{%
        {{uniquename=1,hash=20531a50f8126d9de20c019a74363211}{Mawer}{M\bibinitperiod}{Allen}{A\bibinitperiod}{}{}{}{}}%
      }
      \list{location}{1}{%
        {Cambridge}%
      }
      \list{publisher}{1}{%
        {CUP}%
      }
      \strng{namehash}{20531a50f8126d9de20c019a74363211}
      \strng{fullhash}{20531a50f8126d9de20c019a74363211}
      \field{sortinit}{M}
      \field{labelyear}{1920}
      \field{labeltitle}{{The place-names of Northumberland and Durham}}
      \field{title}{{The place-names of Northumberland and Durham}}
      \field{year}{1920}
    \endentry
    \entry{epns-Bk}{book}{}
      \name{labelname}{2}{}{%
        {{uniquename=0,hash=4d6093b4a0c2460e6f2882adf13392d7}{Mawer}{M\bibinitperiod}{}{}{}{}{}{}}%
        {{uniquename=0,hash=21ae7cedb02db0fa4466cce84219d21e}{Stenton}{S\bibinitperiod}{}{}{}{}{}{}}%
      }
      \name{author}{2}{}{%
        {{hash=20531a50f8126d9de20c019a74363211}{Mawer}{M\bibinitperiod}{Allen}{A\bibinitperiod}{}{}{}{}}%
        {{hash=7e3d1c286187382e0f79c1973fb3b5ea}{Stenton}{S\bibinitperiod}{F.\bibnamedelimi M.}{F\bibinitperiod\bibinitdelim M\bibinitperiod}{}{}{}{}}%
      }
      \name{shortauthor}{2}{}{%
        {{uniquename=0,hash=4d6093b4a0c2460e6f2882adf13392d7}{Mawer}{M\bibinitperiod}{}{}{}{}{}{}}%
        {{uniquename=0,hash=21ae7cedb02db0fa4466cce84219d21e}{Stenton}{S\bibinitperiod}{}{}{}{}{}{}}%
      }
      \list{location}{1}{%
        {Cambridge}%
      }
      \list{publisher}{1}{%
        {English Place-Name Society}%
      }
      \strng{namehash}{3d5595324379f60156ee89ea3274856c}
      \strng{fullhash}{52adbb96b7969c24919cfbabcc553da5}
      \field{sortinit}{P}
      \field{labelyear}{1925}
      \field{labeltitle}{The place-names of Buckinghamshire}
      \field{shorthand}{PN Bk}
      \field{title}{The place-names of Buckinghamshire}
      \field{volume}{II}
      \field{year}{1925}
      \keyw{place-names,England,Buckinghamshire}
    \endentry
  \endsortlist
\endrefsection 

Thanks to everyone who commented - it does seem to be the shortauthor field which causing the problem. If this is my bibtex file:

@book{epns-Bk, title= "The place-names of Buckinghamshire", author= "Allen Mawer and F. M. Stenton", volume= {II}, year= {1925}, shorthand={PN Bk}, shortauthor="Mawer and Stenton", publisher={English Place-Name Society}, }

@book{mawer-nth, title= "The place-names of Northumberland and Durham", author= "Allen Mawer", year= "1920", publisher="CUP", shortauthor="Mawer", address= "Cambridge", }

with shortauthor in both cases, then there is no problem. But if shortauthor appears in only one entry, the problem of unwanted initials reappears. So I'm not sure how I can use shortauthor consistently.

Answer 1

The solution here seems to be: don't use shortauthor. In the example you have shown there is no point using shortauthor the way you did, biblatex can figure that stuff out for itself. The biblatex docs say about shortauthor (p. 22)

This field is mainly intended for abbreviated forms of corporate authors

---

If you for some reason need to use shortauthor, make sure to still give all names consistently. For biblatex Allen Mawer is not Mawer, so use

@book{NASA,
  author = {Allen Mawer and {National Aeronautics and Space Administration}},
  shortauthor = {Allen Mawer and {NASA}},
  title = {The Moon Landing},
  year = {1969},
}

and not shortauthor = {Mawer and {NASA}}, the output will still be "Mawer and NASA" in both cases.