Is de Alfaro under A or D?

Is "de Alfaro" under A or D?

The alphabetization of my last name is a cause of continuous confusion to everybody, myself included. The answer is:

My name should be alphabetized under 'D'

In Italy, my home country, my last name used to be always alphabetized under 'D'. Moreover, I now have some papers with people whose last names fall between 'Alfaro' and 'de' in the alphabetical order, and I chose to be after them in the list of authors; hence, in the interest of consistency, I prefer to be always alphabetized under 'D'. My father, a physicist, also always alphabetizes our last name under 'D' in research papers.

Incidentally, almost invariably the papers in which I am a co-author are signed by co-authors in alphabetical order.

Should I write it with capital 'D' or lowercase 'd'?

Ah, now to the fine points. It depends. These are correct ways:

You can always write DE ALFARO, Luca. Since the last name is in all caps, also 'DE' is in all caps. Don't write "de ALFARO"!
Or you can write Luca de Alfaro. The 'd' is lowercase, when you have the choice.
De Alfaro, Luca is also correct: when the 'D' is at the beginning of a sentence, it should be capital, like everything else.
You can also write de Alfaro, Luca, when it's not at the beginning of a sentence. But I prefer to use Luca de Alfaro instead.

How do I get bibtex to come up with my name in the correct way?

Simple: just write

author = "de Alfaro, Luca"

This also works:

author = "L. de Alfaro"

Future Projects

In the US, everybody is free to dictate how their own last name should be pronounced. I am taking this one step further, dictating how it should be capitalized. Sooner or later, I will make up a declension for it (changing the spelling depending on the grammatical case), but for the moment, this is it. Enjoy!