Standardization of Ethiopian Names in the Scientific Literature

Abstract

This short commentary on citation of Ethiopian names in the literature was first written as
a response to a query I received from an Ethiopian graduate student in Germany in 2009. Having
noticed that only so few of the Ethiopian names that he knew were correctly portrayed in the
scientific literature, i.e., some use their full names (given name attached to father’s name), most
use (or are forced to use) their fathers’s or grandfather’s name as surname, and also having
noticed the small note on my home page, the student asked about the “correct way†of citing
Ethiopian names in the scientific literature. A reply was duly sent and a short note about it was
also published on the “AddisArt and Culture†website. Since this website is not functional at the
moment, I am also now posting it on this website, after making some revisions, to serve the
broader community of authors, editors, publishers, readers, etc.