Handling of the author prefix in Bibtex

In the reference list, references are often ordered based on the surname of the first author alphabetically (A to Z). However some of author names contain prefix such as van or de. This is normally treated as the first letter of the author name in LaTeX. To retain this prefix in the reference but ignored by LaTeX, there is a need to do something more in the LaTeX script. Here is how to do it.

Assume we would like to deal with the reference whose first author name is Arjan van Weele, there are four steps to deal with this issue.

1. In preamble, add the following code.

\DeclareRobustCommand{\VAN}[3]{#2}

2. Just before declare \bibliography{}, add the following code.

\DeclareRobustCommand{\VAN}[3]{#3}

3. In the BibTeX, record author name as follows.

{\VAN{Weele}{Van}{van}} Weele, Arjan

4. Compile LaTeX as usual

Source: Tex.stackexchange.com