Learn English – Omitting the full stops after middle initials in BrE

punctuation

In BrE style, can the full stops be omitted in:

C. J. Harris (Charles James Harris)

Can it be written like this?

C J Harris

And if we abbreviated just the middle initial, is the following acceptable?

Charles J Harris

Best Answer

The general rule of thumb is to abbreviate names as if they were ordinary words. The most common pattern in AmE is to shorten the name to its first letter and add a period:

C. J. Harris

Notable specifics:

  • You traditionally should not omit the space between C. and J. even though non-name abbreviations tend to do so (e.g. U.S. instead of U. S.)
  • If the person is, for one reason or another, traditionally spelled without the periods it is acceptable to do so (e.g. C.C.H. Pounder's name is often written as CCH Pounder)
  • Similarly, if the person's name is often written with special capitalization, it is acceptable to do so (e.g. E.E. Cummings is often written as e e cummings)
  • If the surname is of the form similar to "McDonald" it is sometimes acceptable to use McD. instead of M. (see the answers to How would you abbreviate surnames starting with Mc/O/D?)
  • If you need to distinguish between two people with similar abbreviations you can include the next most significant letter. This is rather common on sports jerseys.

I know of no reason that BrE usage would differ from AmE usage but I encourage anyone who knows the BrE specifics to post them in a relevant answer.

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