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One of my co-author's name has the pattern "Aaaa B Ccccc", where (due to transcription from Chinese) the "B" is indeed a single character (part of the given name). Now BibTeX (in abbrv-style) likes to render this as A. B. Ccccc (note the dot trailing the "B"), whereas I'd either like A. Ccccc or A. B Cccccc. I tried Aaaa~B or B\, but still no go. Any tips?

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up vote 13 down vote accepted

This is really a nasty trick.




author={Truman, Harry {\onelettername{S}}},
title={A title},
journal={J. Nice Results},


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A fabulous trick! –  Mico May 25 '12 at 17:44
Nice solution for numeric citations. It blows up for alpha (it creates a lower-case o), but I rarely use that one. Thanks! –  ShiDoiSi Jun 4 '12 at 8:04
@ShiDoiSi In case the bib style doesn't make abbreviations, just say \newcommand{\onelettername}[1]{#1}, so that you can still use the same .bib file. –  egreg Jun 4 '12 at 8:09
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