Chose name for first publication (special characters and compound names) I am submitting my first paper ever in a couple of months and I was wondering about my family name. The paper is in English and the conference is an international conference.

Assume my name is {Alan} {võn Neumann} {Chúrch}, so {first name} {family name father} and {family name mother} where {family name father has two words}. Note also the special characters (õ and ú) I added there on purpose (as I do have them in my real name).

If I had the choice, I would go with  {Alan} {võn Neumann} {Chúrch}, but I don't want to be cited as Chúrch or Võn. A proper citation would be võn Neumann Chúrch, but võn Neumann would be fine as well.

How can I ensure that I would be properly cited? 
Also, should I keep the special characters? I really would rather keep them.

Best,
Not Alan von Neumann Church ;)
+1 for thinking about this before your first publication. Have you read through the other questions tagged personal-name? They may be helpful.

In your case, I’d go with Alan võn Neumann, or võn Neumann, Alan if your target journal uses this format.

If you include Chúrch, then I’ll guarantee that you will start being referenced as “Chúrch (2015)” - maybe not on this publication, but later. (You do plan on using a consistent name throughout your sciencific career, right?) Bibliographic databases may be smart enough to pick this up, but they will need to rely on journal editors including your correct name in their journal databases, and this is where noise will creep in.

Conversely, I wouldn’t worry too much about the diacritical characters, as long as their mapping to basic characters is straightforward. Search engines understand this, so it won’t make a difference whether your name is listed as võn Neumann or von Neumann. One exception would be German ß, where it is not obvious that this should be transcribed ss. IIRC, people have legally changed their names over this.