On my sport team, when we communicate we would like to use first name plus initial last name initial, e.g. John S. for John Smith, however I always wonder how I should abbreviate some of the Gaelic / Irish / Italian names.
McDonald (M.? MD.? McD?) Macdonald (M.? MD.?) O'Donnell (OD.?) D'Arco (DA.?) LaPat (LP.? L?) Your last initial is your last initial. The only situation where this becomes relevant is if there are 2 John Ms on the team. Then it could be very useful to abbreviate one John McD. vs plain John M.
I do wonder about Dutch "van" names, like Greta van Susteren. I could very easily see this abbreviated as GvS.
answered Sep 20, 2010 at 15:29 4,710 1 1 gold badge 20 20 silver badges 15 15 bronze badges I could easily see "van" completely dropped. You know that Beethoven guy. Commented Sep 21, 2010 at 11:31 Yeah, but you know that Rossum guy that invented Python? Or Susteren herself? These sound off to me. Commented Sep 21, 2010 at 15:42O it not the initial for O'Brian O'B is the initial. I am very surprised by an answer in this thread that suggests otherwise.
Commented Dec 6, 2010 at 19:46 B would be more correct. Commented Dec 6, 2010 at 22:07@Remou - I wonder if this is just a regional difference. I grew up (in the US) with several McDaniels and Macdonals and both used M as their last initial and were alphabetized and such in school as M's not D's.
Commented Dec 6, 2010 at 22:42I live in Ireland. The simple last initial form is the most commonly used:
McDonald > M. MacDonald > M. Macdonald > M. (this is a Scottish name) O'Brien > O. The other option (which I prefer) is to include the entire surname up to the second capital letter, thus:
McDonald > McD. MacDonald > MacD. Macdonald > M. (no change there) O'Brien > O'B. McDonald > MD MacDonald > MD O'Brien > OB but that's probably just people having trouble with apostrophes.
Some people introduce spaces and write O'Brien as O Brien, MacDonald as Mac Donald, and McDonald as Mc Donald. This seems iffy to me in English, though the prefixes do derive from independent Irish words. But if a man is going to give his surname as Ó Briain, I would expect his sister's surname to be Ní Briain.