How to deal with particles in a last name in a reference list

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a substantial difference in several continental languages between uppercase and lowercase versions of a last name: it is wrong to write "de Martino" if the person's last name is normally written "De Martino." This is a historical artifact, where the use of the capital letter indicates nobility, while the lowercase letter denotes a more traditional relationship. Similar rules apply to "von" in German and "van" in Dutch, but not to "de" in French or Spanish.

Therefore, when capitalized, the particle should always be treated as part of the last name. If lowercase, you can treat it as a suffix that goes after the first name. The exception are names like "de Gaulle" where "de" is followed by a one-syllable name.

So, it's:

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Clausewitz, Carl von

de Gaulle, Charles

Di Martino, Emilia

Martino, Emilia di

Maupassant, Guy de

Van Allen, James

My source is the MLA Handbook.


I searched her name in Google Scholar and the first paper "CLIL implementation in Italian schools..." includes a footnote on how to cite it:

Di Martino, E. & Di Sabato, B. ...

So, in short "Di Martino" is the surname and cite/use it as such.

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