According to the standard?
If I read this question yesterday, I answered "no, this is wrong." Indeed, until recently, the HTML5 specification (indeed, both the latest version of Editor Draft and the Recommendation of the candidate ).
The cite element is the name of the work (e.g., book, document, essay, poem, score, song, script, film, television show, game, sculpture, painting, theater, performance, opera, musical, exhibition, court report, etc. .d.). It can be a work that is cited or mentioned in detail (for example, a quote), or it can simply be a work that is mentioned along the way.
The name of the person is not the name of the work, even if people call this person a part of the work, and therefore the element should not be used to indicate the names of people.
Therefore, the text content of the <cite> node should be the name of the work, not the name of the author.
However , this evening I discovered that the semantics of the <cite> element in the editor's project have been changed. Now he says
The cite element represents a link to creative work. It should include the title of the work or the name of the author (person, person or organization) or a link to the URL, which may be in abbreviated form in accordance with the conventions used to add citation metadata.
Consequently, author names are permitted. In fact, the document provides an example equivalent to yours.
I don’t know which version will “win” and become part of the stable recommendation planned for next year (2014).