I’ve not tried it, but https://github.com/derek73/python-nameparser / https://pypi.python.org/pypi/nameparser looks interesting

Owen

Owen Stephens
Owen Stephens Consulting
Web: http://www.ostephens.com
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> On 13 Jan 2017, at 11:34, Timothy Hill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Please excuse the naive way this question is formulated: I'm sure the
> Information & Library Science community has formal terms for what I'm
> attempting to do, but unfortunately I don't know what they are.
> 
> The problem I'm trying to solve is that I have a bunch of author names (for
> example, 'Charles Dickens') that I need to reformat into standard catalogue
> order ('Dickens, Charles'). Obviously the example given is trivial, but of
> course this can get quite complex depending on the addition of titles and
> honorifics.
> 
> Is anyone aware of a software library to perform this kind of conversion?
> The programming language used is not terribly important, though Java or
> Python would be preferable.
> 
> In ideal world the library would deal with the different conventions used
> in different languages and by different institutions - but anything would
> be better than the current split-on-comma approach I'm using right now.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Timothy Hill