Biblatex: author with two or three word names (not Spanish)

Question

How to make biblatex store, print and sort authors with two or three word names, such as:

Dionysius Periegetes

Didymus the Blind

Pliny the Elder

The last name perhaps poses no problem in European Portuguese (it is written: Plínio-o-Velho). But when I insert the name Dionysius Periegetes biblatex thinks that Periegetes is a family name, but in fact it isn't.

Answer 1

If you want to 'keep a name together' as a complete unit you can enclose it in additional curly braces (just like you would do for 'corporate names': Using a 'corporate author' in the "author" field of a bibliographic entry (spelling out the name in full)), so here you would say

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber, style=authoryear]{biblatex}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{names,
  author    = {{Dionysius Periegetes}
               and {Didymus the Blind}
               and {Pliny the Elder}},
  title     = {A Theory on Brontosauruses},
  year      = {1972},
  publisher = {Monthy & Co.},
  location  = {London},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\begin{document}
Lorem \autocite{sigfridsson,names}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

For many intents and purposes that is probably enough. If you want to shorten the names in citations, you may want to look into using the shortauthor field

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber, style=authoryear]{biblatex}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{names,
  author      = {{Dionysius Periegetes}
                 and {Didymus the Blind}
                 and {Pliny the Elder}},
  shortauthor = {Dionysius and Didymus and Pliny},
  title       = {A Theory on Brontosauruses},
  year        = {1972},
  publisher   = {Monthy & Co.},
  location    = {London},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\begin{document}
Lorem \autocite{sigfridsson,names}
\printbibliography
\end{document}