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My name is SALMAN. No Middle and Last name. How do I write my name in research paper or article?

Tommi
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SALMAN
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6 Answers6

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You have two choices.

Either just use your given name, e.g., as in Matthew B. Dwyer, John Hatcliff, Robby, Venkatesh Prasad Ranganath: Exploiting Object Escape and Locking Information in Partial-Order Reductions for Concurrent Object-Oriented Programs. That has two advantages – it's formally and culturally correct – and two disadvantages – you will have to explain it to many people, and finding you in any search engine is awfully difficult.

Alternatively, invent some "first" name or initial, so for instance, you might publish as "S. Salman". That's formally incorrect, but probably more convenient in most situations.

Whatever you do, do it consistently. That's the most important recommendation.

Uwe
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    Some more suggestions: S.A.L.Man, Sal Mann. – Džuris Jan 21 '17 at 11:24
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    Or even go with Salman Salman in places that require two names. That way people will get it right no matter which one they choose. – Tobias Kildetoft Jan 21 '17 at 12:21
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    Using a single name in such a context might alternatively be regarded as an advantage, since it's more unusual, so someone reading the paper, or meeting Salman at a conference, might be more likely to remember him and his work. – Norman Gray Jan 21 '17 at 12:21
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    Use the chosen form prominently on your web sites. Someone reading one of your papers may try to learn more about your research by searching for you by the name on the paper. – Patricia Shanahan Jan 21 '17 at 15:25
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    In addition to this advice, I would strongly urge SALMAN to correctly set up an online presence on as many channels as possible: set up profiles on ORCID, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Academia.edu, any relevant Stack Exchange sites, Github, Bitbucket, and any relevant others, and make sure that they are all appropriately linked, discoverable, and contain accurate listings of their research output. This then helps offset the difficulties in finding mononymous authors through standard search channels. – E.P. Jan 21 '17 at 18:37
  • +1 for ORCID @E.P. I've wrote recently this answer - Salman, please have a look regarding ORCID there: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/81506/ – Olexandr Konovalov Jan 26 '17 at 17:15
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Not everybody in the world fits into the western idea of first name, maybe middle name/names, last name.

Regardless of what your ID card says, you can publish your papers under whatever name you want. Some people use pseudonyms. Much more common is that many women continue to publish under their maiden name when they marry and change their surname.

There's no reason you can't publish papers as Salman.

David Richerby
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    "(...) you can publish your papers under whatever name you want" - a very important point not mentioned in other answers! – Jakub Konieczny Jan 22 '17 at 02:17
  • @JakubKonieczny I am actually unsure if that is true. For example a normal name in one language might mean something inappropriate in another. Setting aside reasons for which that person might want to publish under such a name, even if it is legal, the editor might not want to go with it. – dtldarek Jan 23 '17 at 09:21
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    @dtldarek I have no idea how happy a journal editor would be if I tried to publish a paper under a deliberately offensive pseudonym. But, come on, that's not what we're talking about, here. – David Richerby Jan 23 '17 at 10:08
  • @DavidRicherby I only wanted to point out that some care should be taken to check if the pseudonym or name transliteration that we would like to use won't cause any headaches later. For example if you want to create a new name for a product with hopefully international reach, then you should check potential name candidates to avoid embarrassment. – dtldarek Jan 23 '17 at 10:30
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    @dtldarek Of course, you are right that one should be careful when choosing the name, and there are many practical considerations (many of which are discussed in more detain on this SE) which go into this. All I wanted to emphasise is that you can choose the name, there are no hard rules saying what name you can and cannot use. – Jakub Konieczny Jan 23 '17 at 13:47
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    A slightly unrelated side note: While not as common, some men do change their name as well when marrying (e.g. in Germany). So this point does not only apply to women. – Emil Jan 23 '17 at 17:35
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    > you can publish your papers under whatever name you want. – yes! To give an example, Dr. Perelman, who proved the Poincaré conjecture, is officially called "Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman", the typical naming on the paper would be "Grigori Y. Perelman" or "Grigori Perelman". His proofs carry the name "Grisha Perelman". This is a shorthand of his first name, probably because he is comfortable being called this way. So, yes, you can use whatever name you want. – Oleg Lobachev Nov 14 '18 at 15:04
  • @OlegLobachev Actually, I'm not sure that's really what I meant. Middle names in, say, English speaking countries, and patronymics in Russia are treated almost as disambiguators and are very often omitted or initialized; familiar forms of a name are considered as just being different ways of saying the same thing. In quite a strong sense, all the examples you give are just different presentations of the same name. For example, if I said "You can use whatever postal address you want", you wouldn't say "Yes, I could say I live at 123 Main Street or 123 Main St.!" – David Richerby Nov 14 '18 at 15:11
  • Well, while "Grisha" can be univocally tracked back to "Grigory", this is not a widely accepted way of referencing self in a written manner in Russian. (In contrast to, say, referring to Mr. Clinton as "Bill", which is fully Ok in US.) One case of using such a shortened name is mentioning a child in credits of a film. In most cases, definitely including research publications, you are expected to write down your full first name. But – and that's your point in my opinion – you are not obliged to. – Oleg Lobachev Nov 14 '18 at 15:17
  • @OlegLobachev Sure but when you read "Grisha", you still think "Oh, it's Grigory and he's being unusually informal". – David Richerby Nov 14 '18 at 15:29
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Some mononymous professors:

Arvind
Johnson Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Publications
Google Scholar

Kinshuk
Dean of the College of Information
University of North Texas
Publications
Google Scholar

SunWolf
Professor of Communication
College of Arts and Sciences
Santa Clara University
Publications

As you can see, you are not alone. All these professors seem to be using their (single) name in publications. (No doubt there are others too, who have a single name, but use variant forms in publications.)

(Edit: These examples, along with examples of professors who have the same first and last names, are collected on the Improbable Research blog.)

ShreevatsaR
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    It's curious to note that while on Dr. Kinshuk's Google Scholar profile the attribution is correctly noted, the corresponding Google Scholar page for Arvind has his name missing from most papers, incorrectly noted for a few, and it does this monstruosity. – E.P. Jan 22 '17 at 00:04
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    Also, were you previously aware of these, or did you just now go looking for them? If the latter, it would be good to note how you find them, so Salman can look further in that direction. – E.P. Jan 22 '17 at 00:05
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    @E.P. I was previously aware of these (having some interest in names), but I probably came across them via mini-AIR, maybe this :-) Come to think of it, some of the others on that list may be relevant too (if the OP chooses "Salman Salman"). And yes, looks like Google Scholar's automated systems don't always deal correctly with these attributions, as will probably many other programs. :-( – ShreevatsaR Jan 22 '17 at 00:17
  • Ah, that would be it - of course, a perfectly natural subject for Ann. Imp. Res. And yes, Salman may well find many of those examples useful - please consider adding the link to your answer. – E.P. Jan 22 '17 at 00:21
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    Does SunWolf really has a capital W in the middle of their name? That's horrible. I'm now imagining they spend most of their days on the phone, talking to publishers etc, trying to remove the space. – Mr Lister Jan 22 '17 at 18:24
  • @ShreevatsaR, Google Scholar isn't the only automated software that has trouble with single names. For that reasons, putting in "Salman Salman" is probably best for dealing with the software and surroduning issues. – JoshuaZ Nov 15 '18 at 15:49
  • Add Min-Oo, although these days he goes by Maung Min-Oo. Maung is kind of like "Mr." in Burmese, though more specific. – Fedya Mar 01 '21 at 16:17
  • I read a lot of papers by Arvind back in the 70s. Really it was my first introduction to the idea that first name middle name last name wasn't universal. – davidbak Feb 07 '23 at 22:11
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A colleague of mine with a unique name uses his father's name as his "first" name (usually just the initial) for his publications.

In various systems, it is common practice to use the father's or mother's name for further disambiguation (e.g., Indian visa application form ask for that information).

The above choice transposes this practice into the first-name surname system and if I understood my colleague correctly is commonly used.

This is somewhat close to Uwe's second suggestion, except that you do not literally invent it, but rather follow a systematic way to assign it.

This might have the advantage that it is easier to explain the situation, than with an arbitrarily self-selected name.

A drawback that colleague mentioned is that sometimes he will be addressed by his "first" name, so his father's name.

quid
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    One advantage of inventing an initial only is that people will not address you by a wrong name. – Uwe Jan 22 '17 at 10:42
  • Yes. I believe I said this more or less in my answer. But an initial only, even more so an invented one, might raise more questions, and possibly create issues when filling out forms etc. It might come down to an individual preference what one prefers/does mind less explaining or with which explanation one is more comfortable. Plus, as I said, it's not a random idea of mine, but for some transposes something they are used to doing in a different form, and anyway it is something that some, I think quite many in fact, people in that situation do. – quid Jan 22 '17 at 12:45
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    This is actually how surnames appeared historically in the first place in many cultures. – vsz Jan 22 '17 at 15:16
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    @vsz indeed, Partonymic and Matronymic naming are wide spread, and also were common in some "Western" countries, even well into the 20th century. Indeed, it seems in Iceland such a system is still in place. That's why I think if the question arises the explanation "I use my father's/mother's name for this (as this is common in my culture)" is one that will work better with many than "I just invented that name-field datum" – quid Jan 22 '17 at 16:14
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An old lecturer of mine had this problem; he had stopped using his surname in his younger days, and all official paperwork referred to him by only one name. However he found, when it came to publishing papers, that many journals assumed his single name must be a middle name of another author on the paper. His solution was to use his name twice.

It also allowed him to make a joke along the lines of “so good they named me twice”.

Wrzlprmft
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Paul D
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You could use your father's name + "son" as your last name (or "daughter", "dottir", etc, with an S between, perhaps).

If, for example, your father were also named SALMAN, you could be SALMAN SALMANSON. Sounds great!

That in your case it is a literal description rather than a hereditary name or one assigned to you at birth is not a problem.

ErikE
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