BibTeX, biblatex and biber ⇒ AGU template: First name appearing before last name for a subset of references

[rawlins02]

I'm using the American Geophysical Union template .tex file on Overleaf. After compiling I'm seeing a subset of my in text references are appearing like (J. W. Smith et al., 2012) rather than expected (Smith et al., 2012). The agutexSI2019.cls class file calls \bibliographystyle{apacite}. I installed apacite via apacite.ins on my computer and note that the odd behavior does not occur. So it appears there's some issue with the class or style files on Overleaf. Suggestions appreciated. I will contact Overleaf admins to ask for assistance if unable to resolve soon.

[rawlins02]

Solved.
I determined that the author field for two individuals was slightly different in the entries for several papers. Bibtex thought there were several people named, for example T Smith. So the bibliography style file dictated that these papers show up in the text as T Smith et al. 2020. Lesson learned to be consistent in how name appears in each bibliography entry, and thus to double check bibtex references that I download from a source.