Fonts in Illustrator and Photoshop are ordered alphabetically by writing script code, Roman fonts appearing in the first group and others in subsequent groupings below the first.
Many TTFonts have the incorrect writing script as many foundries were using a font creation program with a bug in it.
If you open the adobefnt*.LST (where * represents either nothing or a single digit numeral), file, you will find those problem fonts have an entry for:
writingscript : easteuropean (or Greek or something other than Roman).
By editing the Adobefnt.lst file so those entries read writingscript: Roman, they will appear in the correct order and be usable. However, you will also need to set the adobefnt.lst file to read only, or it will revert when Illustrator is next opened. This means that Illustrator won’t see any additions or deletions to/from your active fonts.
The real cure is to get versions of those fonts that do not contain the bug.
Note: There can be numerous copies of Adobefnt*.LST files on your machine – there will be at least one in every folder that contains any font file.
