Initialized Name

How to establish "Yisra'el Tsevi R.B."?

In pre-AACR2 days  his  LC heading was "Rav, Israel Tsevi". It seems to  be the consensus at LC that this is  the way  to  go,
that is:  if the initials make a pronounceable word, romanize them  as  a  word  in  the  heading.  See,  for example, n84-182625, "Lichtenstein, Hillel  ben  Baruch,  dates," also called "Hillel Lasch  (in  rom.)"  and  "Hilel  Lash  (i.e.,
lamed-gershayim-shin)."

This practice does seem to fly in the face of  our rule (cf. HCM  p.  30)  that  we don't supply vowels in romanizing initials
unless we find said initialism vocalized in the dictionary, but most people would  be  willing  to  call personal names  a
special case.

It would be nice to add  a  ref from "R. B.,  Yisra'el  Tsevi"--  possibly  even  from  "R.  B.,  Yisra'el Tsevi$q(Rotten Berg)" (dots under the t's of "Rotten")-- cf. rule 22.18A, bottom of  p. 416.  This  has *not* been  LC practice in the past, but  it would not hurt.

Since the name appeared in a special t.p., and a fuller form was also found, it was eventually established in the fuller form:

ID:NAFR9644416     ST:p    EL:n   STH:a    MS:c   UIP:a    TD:19980820110016 KRC:a
NMU:a    CRC:c   UPN:a   SBU:a   SBC:a   DID:n    DF:12-11-96
RFE:a CSC:c  SRU:b   SRT:n   SRN:n   TSS:?   TGA:?   ROM:?   MOD:  LCT:
VST:d 08-20-98                      Other Versions: earlier
010    nr 96044416
040    NjP$cNjP$dDLC
100 1  Ro.t.tenberg, Yisra'el Tsevi,$cha-Le.vi,$d1889-1944
400 2  R. B., Yisra'el Tsevi$q(Ro.t.tenberg),$cha-Le.vi,$d1889-1944
400 1  Hale.vi, Yisra'el Tsevi R. B.$q(Yisra'el Tsevi Ro.t.tenberg),$d1889-1944
400 1  Rav, Yisra'el Tsevi,$cha-Le.vi,$d1889-1944
670    Or male, 1984:$bspecial t.p. (Admur maran Yisra'el Tsevi R.B. ha-Le.vi, z. ts. .ve-.k.l., ha-a.b.d. .ve-r.m. di-.k..k. .Kasani .veha-gelilot; d. 3 Si.van 704; son of Yehosef Tsadi.ka) p. 3, etc. (Yisra'el Tsevi ha-Le.vi Ro.t.tenberg; b. 5 Sukot 650)
675    Enc. Jud., c1972.

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In another  chief  source, the  an  author's  forenames  were abbreviated as 'ayin, bet-tsade-gershayim-nun.  There is evidence
from  Kressel  that   the  actual  names  are 'Imanu'el,   Tsevi   and   Nisan.    How   to  transcribe?

In  the 670, the abbreviation will come out  as "'I. b.  Ts.  N."
Spelled out,  this comes  to "'Imanu'el ben Tsevi Nisan."  Though  Kressel  uses  a  makef (hyphen)  to  connect  the  father's  two  forenames, one shouldn't imitate  this  in  a delimiter-q qualifier, since the makef is not part of the data from the chief source.

ID:NAFR9540781     ST:p    EL:n   STH:a    MS:c   UIP:a    TD:19951216053656
KRC:a    NMU:a    CRC:c   UPN:a   SBU:a   SBC:a   DID:n    DF:11-02-95
RFE:a CSC:c  SRU:b   SRT:n   SRN:n   TSS:?   TGA:?   ROM:?   MOD:  LCT:
VST:d 12-18-95                      Other Versions: earlier
010    nr 95040781
040    CSt-HC$cCSt-HC$dCSt-HC
100 10 Golomb, °I. b. Ts. N.$q(°Imanu'el ben Tsevi Nisan)
400 10 Golomb, °Imanu'el ben Tsevi Nisan
400 10 Golomba, E.
670    Had Gadya, 1893:$bt.p. (°I. b. Ts. N. Golomb; E. Golomba [in Cyr.])
670    Le.ksi.kon fun der nayer Yidisher li.tera.tur, 1956-1981$b(Golomb, °Imanu'el; b. in Vilna, son of the writer and musician Tsevi-Nisan Golomb)

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The Rabbinic abbreviation "r.  t.," probably stands for "Rabenu Tam."  If  this identification is correct, the LC romanization would be "R. T." (capital T. because it's  a surname, and capital R. because it's  a title immediately preceding the name,
per rule A.13C1).  Note the space between the letters.   The  rules  for  spacing  in initials, initialisms and acronyms are given in  RI 1.0C,  p.  1-2.  Probably the trickiest part of these rules is  at the bottom of  p.  2: "If two  or more distinct  initialisms  (or   sets   of  initials),  acronyms,  or abbreviations occur  in  juxtaposition, separate  each  from  the other with a space."
The title "R." is considered (by LC) to  be a "distinct initialism" from the surname "T." (as in the "M. J.P. Rabaut" example in  the RI), hence the space.  Cataloger judgment will  probably  have  to  enter  into  some  of  these decisions.

Acronyms  which  are  people's  names  (like Rambam and Maharal) belong in  the NAF.  In fact, "R. T." (meaning "Rabenu Tam") is  a ref in no91-5204, the record for Jacob ben  Meir Tam.   When  we  find acronyms like  this  in prominent positions, we  should regard them  as variants and  add them.