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Fix Locative or Compound Surnames by Adding Dashes

Source: R/prep_name.R
fix_locative_surnames.Rd

This function identifies common surname particles (e.g., Van, De, Von, Mc) that typically appear in compound or locative surnames (e.g., Van Dyke, De La Rosa) and merges them with the following word using a dash (e.g., Van-Dyke, De-La-Rosa).

Usage

fix_locative_surnames(
  x,
  particles = c("LA", "VON", "VAN", "DEL", "DE", "DI", "DEN", "DER", "MC", "O")
)

Arguments

x

A character vector of full names.

particles

A character vector of common surname particles to merge with the following word. Matching is case-insensitive.

Value

A character vector of names with compound surnames corrected by inserting dashes between the particle and the following surname component.

Details

These particles, known as nobiliary particles or locative prefixes, often denote origin or family lineage and are part of many compound surnames in European languages.

See also

For background on surname particles and compound surnames, see Wikipedia: Nobiliary particle.

Examples

names <- c(
  "Jane Van Dyke",
  "Bob VAN DERVAL",
  "Mary von Diesel",
  "Carlos De La Rosa",
  "VAN CLIBURN",
  "Dylan Van"
)

fix_locative_surnames(names)
#> [1] "Jane Van-Dyke"        "Bob VAN-DERVAL"       "Mary von-Diesel"     
#> [4] "Carlos De-La NA-Rosa" "VAN-CLIBURN"          "Dylan Van"           
#> [1] "Jane Van-Dyke"     "Bob VAN-DERVAL"     "Mary von-Diesel"
#> [4] "Carlos De-La-Rosa" "VAN CLIBURN"        "Dylan Van"