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Biblatex's disambiguation of names uses, by default, the abbreviation of other name parts when a labelname becomes ambiguous. But, unfortunately it adds the abbreviation dot even in one letter words. For example, in Portuguese one can find names with the preposition "e" (stands for "and" in English). And biblatex inappropriately "abbreviates" it as "e."

How can I remove the abbreviation dot in this case?

A MWE:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=authortitle]{biblatex}
\usepackage[brazilian]{babel}
\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{Silva2000,
    author = {Silva, Edmundo de Macedo Soares e},
    title = {Title},
    date = {2000},
}

@book{Silva2010,
    author = {Silva, Ligia Osorio},
    title = {Title 2},
    date = {2010},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\footcites{Silva2000}{Silva2010}
\end{document}

enter image description here

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10
  • The problem is - if I understand correctly - that de Macedo Soares e is not really a first name (that's where it is currently) and not really the 'primary' last name either. So to get this right one might have to define new name parts: tex.stackexchange.com/q/313176/35864, tex.stackexchange.com/a/288041/35864, tex.stackexchange.com/q/320693/35864 – moewe Feb 22 '18 at 13:46
  • Of course you could also ask PLK to stop biber inserting \bibinitperiod after lower-case one-letter name bits, but I'm not sure that is possible/desirable. All of this already happens in the Biber stages, biblatex can't really do anything about this. – moewe Feb 22 '18 at 13:50
  • BTW: How do I know where to 'make the cut' with names like this? Why is 'Artur da Costa e Silva' always 'Costa e Silva'. And why does Wikipedia call 'Edmundo de Macedo Soares e Silva' 'Macedo Soares' when you seem to want 'Silva'? – moewe Feb 22 '18 at 13:53
  • @moewe, that would definitely be overkill. Names in Portuguese are generally in the western tradition. Of course, I could as well say his family name is "Macedo Soares e Silva". But I'd say it is common to have these "middle family names", not only in for Portuguese names. – gusbrs Feb 22 '18 at 13:54
  • As to your last question the advice that I usually find to this respect is to render the name as it is commonly done by others or by the author him/herself. "Costa e Silva" is usually called so. And it gets worse: this particular "Edmundo de Macedo Soares e Silva" is very commonly referred to as "Macedo Soares". – gusbrs Feb 22 '18 at 13:57
2

Since I just found out how to do this for Use only the last name as namepartfamily instead of everything after prefix I'll add an answer here as well. You can use {de\nopunct} and {e\nopunct} in the given-i name part to suppress the punctuation that would be added.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=authortitle]{biblatex}
\usepackage[brazilian]{babel}
\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{Silva2000,
    author = {family=Silva, given=Edmundo de Macedo Soares e, given-i=E {de\nopunct} M S {e\nopunct}},
    title = {Title},
    date = {2000},
}

@book{Silva2010,
    author = {Silva, Ligia Osorio},
    title = {Title 2},
    date = {2010},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\footcites{Silva2000}{Silva2010}
\end{document}

enter image description here

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1
  • Bloody Brazilians! ;) Nice discovery, thanks! – gusbrs May 28 '18 at 19:48
1

Given the discussion with @moewe in the comments, I opted for a workaround from the point of view of the original problem, but one which has some desirable side effects (from my perspective, this may well not be what you want). The workaround is to specify directly the name parts in extended format, and to set the abbreviated form, in particular, in a such a way that name particles as "de" (=von) or "e" are not used.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=authortitle]{biblatex}
\usepackage[brazilian]{babel}
\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{Silva2000,
    author = {family=Silva, given=Edmundo de Macedo Soares e, given-i=E M S},
    title = {Title},
    date = {2000},
}

@book{Silva2010,
    author = {Silva, Ligia Osorio},
    title = {Title 2},
    date = {2010},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\footcites{Silva2000}{Silva2010}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Which, in my view, seems a sensible way to abbreviate the name anyway. Especially if you usually go with useprefix=false as I do (and as is the default).

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