Automatically abbreviate authors' first names in LaTeX

Question

Using natbib/Latex/Bibtex, in the references section I get references with full first names like:

Vladimir Iosifovich Levenshtein. Binary codes capable of correcting deletions, insertions, and reversals. Technical Report 8, 1966.

I would like automatically abbreviated first names like:

V. I. Levenshtein. Binary codes capable of correcting deletions, insertions, and reversals. Technical Report 8, 1966.

If you have an idea how to do this I will be glad to hear.

Moose

Caspar's answer is great, but should be replaced by \usepackage[backend=bibtex,giveninits=true]{biblatex} because firstinits is declared as deprecated. – Resinoid

Answer 1

Use a BibTeX style that does this. Alternatively, create your own style by modifying an existing one. You will have to change the function format.names, so that a line similar to this:

s nameptr "{f.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" format.name$ 't :=

has f. as shown. The full first name would be shown if it is ff.

Hako

I use the \bibliographystyle{plainnat}, where should I edit the function (in which file?). Thanks! – Moose

@TTT: Copy the file plainnat.bst into your working directory under a different name (e.g. my-plainnat.bst). Look for the FUNCTION {format.names}. About the seventh line of that function is the line shown above. Modify it to f. instead of ff. Then, use \bibliographystyle{my-plainnat} in your LaTeX file. – Hako

Thanks, this worked! Additional step is that you need to update your index. Check out link and scroll down to "4. Update your index" for instructions. – Moose

Should this answer be moved to tex.stackexchange? – Hypabyssal

Notice that one need to delete the .bbl file before it works. – Jennelljenner

Answer 2

If you are using Biblatex, just add this in your preable when calling for Biblatex:

\usepackage[backend=bibtex,giveninits=true]{biblatex}

Note: For older latex versions: use firstinits instead - firstinits was recently replaced by giveninits.

Mammalian

See flipper's comment above: as of 2020, firstinits is deprecated and should be replaced by giveninits. – Achondrite