About short author name In my ID card, my complete name has the following form : FirstName MiddleName1 MiddleName2 LastName. I will give an example (created name): Ahmed El Mustafa Ali. As you can see there is a space between El and Mustafa. Also, El is not in reality a middle name since it does not make sense if we take it alone (but Mustafa or ElMustafa are meaningful). In this example, I would like to shorten it A.E. Ali instead of A.E.M. Ali
Could I use only the initial letters of my FirstName, MiddleName1 and LastName in my short author name and skip that of MiddleName2 whereas in my complete name I do it correctly as the ID card?
If your chosen abbreviation make sense in your own culture you should feel free to use it.
But I make one recommendation, in case you are new at this. Choose a &quot;public persona name&quot; that you will feel comfortable using throughout your professional life. This will make it easier for people to find your work as your career progresses.
There is one additional consideration, however. You want your chosen name to be relatively unique in your field. In Egypt, for example, I think that the E in El has almost no distinguishing element. (I studied once with someone named ... El Masri: The Egyptian). If you can be confused with others, it won't help in your career.
This is more of an issue for women in some cultures where they may change their names for marriage and such.
But establish a persona, even if you want it to be a pseudonym, and stick with it. I doubt that editors or others will object.