How to do Chicago-style citation where author last name, first name appear in full in bibliography using the natbib and bibtex?

Question

There are three things attempted here simultaneously: 1) Chicago-style citation 2) Last name, first name (e.g., Doe, Jane) in bibliography 3) Use natbib package and bibtex (though I'm willing to try something new)

My current code is very simple:

\usepackage{natbib}

\bibliographystyle{chicago}
\bibliography{mybib}

In the mybib.bib file, I have, for instance:

@article{hibbs77,
author = {Douglas A. Hibbs},
title = {Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy},
journaltitle = {American Political Science Review},
year = {1977},
volume = {71},
number = {4},
pages = {1467--1487},
}

Any ideas?

Answer 1

• If you want to use BibTeX and the chicago bibliography style, you should also use the chicago citation management package. The natbib citation management package is mostly, but not fully, compatible with the chicago bibliography style; see Natbib confused with same first author and year but different coauthors for more information on this subject. Do be aware, though, that the chicago bibliography style file dates back to 1992 and implements the formatting guidelines of the 13th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, not those of the current, 16th edition.

• To get full first names printed out in the formatted bibliography, you'll need to modify the bibliography style file. I suggest you proceed as follows:

  • Find the file chicago.bst in your TeX distribution. Make a copy of this file and name the copy, say, chicago-ff.bst. ("ff" stands for "full first names"; you're free to choose a different name.) Don't edit an original file of the TeX distribution directly.

  • Open the file chicago-ff.bst in a text editor.

  • Locate the function format.names. (It starts on line 387 in my copy of the file.)

    In this function, replace "{vv~}{ll}{, jj}{, f.}" with "{vv~}{ll}{, jj}{, ff}", and replace "{f.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" with "{ff }{vv~}{ll}{, jj}".

  • Next, locate the function format.names.fml. (It should start on line 451.)

    In this function, replace "{f.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" with "{ff }{vv~}{ll}{, jj}".

    Aside: I trust you've guessed by now that f. stands for "abbreviated first names terminated with a dot" and that ff stands for "full first names without a dot". (Aside: Observe that the "von", "lastname", and "junior" components of an author's full name -- denoted by vv, ll, and jj, respectively, in the BibTeX function -- do not get abbreviated.)

  • Save the file chicago-ff.bst either in the directory that contains your main tex file or in a directory that's searched by your TeX distribution. If you choose the latter method, be sure to also update the filename database of your TeX distribution.

  • In your main tex file, change \bibliographystyle{chicago} to \bibliographystyle{chicago-ff}. Then, re-run LaTeX, BibTeX, and LaTeX twice more to propagate all changes.

Happy BibTeXing!