What is a Surname?
We mentioned earlier that author tables do not represent
complete guidelines for resolving book numbers. For instance, they
cannot help in establishing who the author is in numerous cases,
when authorship is not clearly stated (official reports, corporate
documents, legal documents, collective works, anonymous
publication etc.). In addition, even in cases when the author’s name
is present it may not obvious which word in the name should be
selected, e.g. Sergio Rodríguez López Manuel or Lin Chan Siu
Chun or Erik Jan Van der Linden or mediaeval authors such as
Dante Alighieri or Leonardo da Vinci.