Prefixes are d’, de, de La (the name goes under La not de), Des, Du, L’, La, Le, Les, St., Ste. (to be arranged as if written Saint, Sainte), Van, A’, Ap, O’, Fitz, Mac (which is to be printed as it is in the title, whether M’, or Mc, or Mac, but to be arranged as if written Mac). {24}
25. Put names of Latin authors under that part of the name chosen in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography, unless there is some good reason for not doing so.
26. Put names of capes, lakes, mountains, rivers, forts, etc., beginning with Cape, Lake, Mt., etc., under the word following the prefix, but when the name is itself used as a prefix, do not transpose Cape, etc., nor in such names as Isle of the Woods, Isles of Shoals.
Ex. Cod, Cape; George, Lake; Washington, Mt.; Moultrie, Fort; but Cape Breton Island. When the name of a fort becomes the name of a city, of course the inversion must be abandoned, as Fort Wayne.
(iii.) Under what form of the name.
27. Give the names, both family and Christian, in the vernacular form, [16] if any instance occurs of the use of that form in the printed publications of the author. [17]
[16] The vernacular form of most Christian names may be found in Michaelis’s “Wörterbuch der Taufnamen” (Berlin, 1856). There are also meagre lists in foreign dictionaries. For the forms of mediæval names much assistance can be had from A. Potthast’s “Bibliotheca historica medii aevi, Berlin, Weber, 1862,” O, and “Supplement, 1868,” O; also from Alfred Franklin’s “Dictionnaire des noms, surnoms, et pseudonymes latins de l’histoire littéraire du Moyen Age (1100 à 1530), Paris, 1876,” O. (On the names of sovereigns, see § [19]; on the Latin names of Greek authors, see § [36]; on the names of Greek gods, see § [100].)
[17] This is the British Museum rule. It will obviously be sometimes impossible and often difficult to determine this point in a library of less extent than the Museum, and the cataloguer must make up his mind to some inconsistency in his treatment of mediæval names, and be consoled by the knowledge that if proper references are made no harm will be done. Against a too great preference for the vernacular Professor De Morgan writes in the preface to his “Arithmetical books:” “I have not attempted to translate the names of those who wrote in Latin at a time when that language was the universal medium of communication. I consider that the Latin name is that which the author has left to posterity, and that the practice of retaining it is convenient, as marking, to a certain extent, the epoch of his writings, and as being the appellation by which his contemporaries and successors cite him. It is well to know that Copernicus, Dasypodius, Xylander, Regiomontanus, and Clavius were Zepernik, Rauchfuss, Holtzmann, Müller, and Schlüssel. But as the butchers’ bills of these eminent men are all lost, and their writings only remain, it is best to designate them by the name they bear on the latter rather than the former.”
The same may be said of Camerarius (Kämmerer), Capito (Kopflein), Mercator (Kramer), Œcolampadius (Hausschein), where it would be useless to employ the vernacular name; if both forms are in use, as in the case of Pomeranius = Bugenhagen, the vernacular should have the preference. Reuchlin is much more common than its equivalent, Capnio.
Before the Reformation the presumption is in favor of the Latin form; after it in favor of the vernacular.