orthography

DeMarco is an Italian surname sometimes spelled De Marco or de Marco. Even I have spelled it that way at times, in a lifelong quest to get the M properly capitalized. The lowercase form "de marco" does not occur; it is used on the site for stylistic purposes only. I do not take after e. e. cummings in print.

In traditional American orthography, this and other Italian names should be spelled as one word with two capital letters: DeMarco. When using all capital letters, the E must be typeset in small caps, thus: DeMARCO.

The initial associated with the name is D, not M; thus my initials are M.C.D. In English, the De is not treated as a separable particle of Italian names, so there is no issue of the author's choice in alphabetization (as there sometimes is with names such as de la Mare, which can be alphabetized under D or M, and possibly even under L, according to the author's personal preference). Although the inseparable particles Mc and Mac have in the past been alphabetized apart from the rest of the M's, I have never seen this done with De. DeMarcos are alphabetized with the D's, between Demarais and Desmarais.

Note: This orthographic rule is most consistent in the case of Italian names. Desmarais is a French name, occasionally spelled with an infix capital M but not often. Spanish surnames are usually spelled with separate particles. Portuguese names occur in all possible variants: da Costa, Da Costa, DaCosta, Dacosta, etc.