order posts (woocommerce products) alphabetically but ignore certain words, eg 'The' and 'An'

Woocommerce alphabetical sorting with cool ignore 'the' and 'an' function

/**
  * Cool orderby function from Monkey Puzzle. Adapted from:
  * Tutorial: http://www.skyverge.com/blog/sort-woocommerce-products-custom-fields/
 **/
function monkey_ordering_args( $sort_args ) {

$orderby_value = isset( $_GET['orderby'] ) ? woocommerce_clean( $_GET['orderby'] ) : apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby' ) );
switch( $orderby_value ) {

    // Name your sortby key whatever you'd like; must correspond to the $sortby in the next function
    case 'slug':
        $sort_args['orderby']  = 'name';
        // Sort by ASC because we're using alphabetic sorting
        $sort_args['order']    = 'asc';
        break;          
}

return $sort_args;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args', 'monkey_ordering_args' );


// Add these new sorting arguments to the sortby options on the frontend
function monkey_add_new_orderby( $sortby ) {

// Adjust the text as desired
$sortby['slug'] = __( 'Sort by name', 'woocommerce' );

return $sortby;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby_options', 'monkey_add_new_orderby' );
add_filter( 'woocommerce_catalog_orderby', 'monkey_add_new_orderby' );