Q. What is the CMOS standard for alphabetizing names that are hyphenated and not hyphenated? This would apply mainly to persons who, instead of hyphenating their name upon being married, make their pre-marriage last name their middle name. For example, Pat Doe Smith and Pat Doe-Smith. Should both examples of this name be alphabetized under the Ds, the Ss, or would the first example be alphabetized under the Ss and the second example be alphabetized under the Ds?
A. Compound family names, with or without hyphens, are usually alphabetized according to the first element.
Lloyd George, David
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig
Sackville-West, Victoria
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre
But be sure to check against a biographical dictionary or other reliable resource. See CMOS 8.6, 8.11, and 16.72 for more examples.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. When referring to Orville and Wilbur Wright as a unit, should the word “brothers” be capitalized—Wright brothers vs. Wright Brothers?
A. According to CMOS 8.36, “Kinship names are lowercased unless they immediately precede a personal name or are used alone, in place of a personal name.” One of the examples at 8.36 is “the Brontë sisters,” who, though none of them lived to see the age of modern aviation, provide a perfect analogy in terms of capitalization: write “the Wright brothers.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]