Alphabetical issue.

[Mysterian]

I work in a nursery There is a child called Brenda de Umbrella. (Not real name).

Should she be filed under 'U' for Umbrella, or 'D' for de Umbrella?

It is spelt with a small 'd', and pronounced sort of as one word "dumbrella".

Any ideas?

Apparently under 'd' if the suffix is 1 syllable, and 'u' if it's more.

Thank you. D it is then!

Dutch names in particular are alphabetised by the letter of the word following the article and not the article itself as are French names where the article is separated from the surname and the article is usually in lower case,

The confusion arises as the corresponding O' or Mc in Scottish and Irish names has always been treated as the defining letter in terms deciding where a name should appear in an alphabetical list. Though I suspect this is due to a failure by the English to acknowledge the actual meaning of the article in the name.

Most English names of this type drop the 'of' when stating name and surname. Where would you put Charlotte, George and Louis of Cambridge? In the C's, I would guess.

The confusion comes where names have been anglicised or more likely americanised to be treated without the grammatical significance or understanding of the meaning of the article.

In fact some discussions on this refer to the 'anarchic foreign rules' relating to these names.

If the de is lowercase and separated from Umbrella, I would file under U.