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 Email: [log in to unmask] Telephone: 0121 288 6936 > 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