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A proper noun is a
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
'', ''
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...
'', ''
Sarah Sarah (born Sarai) is a biblical matriarch and prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her character similarly, as that of a pio ...
'', ''
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a
class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differently ...
of entities (''continent, planet, person, corporation'') and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a ''continent'', another ''planet'', these ''persons'', our ''corporation''). Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to ''groups'' of entities considered as unique (the ''Hendersons'', the ''
Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissim ...
'', ''the
Azores ) , motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace") , anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores") , image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg , map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union , map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...
'', the ''
Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance ...
''). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the ''Mozart'' experience; his ''Azores'' adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no ''Pavarotti''; a few would-be ''Napoleons''). The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention. A distinction is normally made in current linguistics between ''proper nouns'' and ''proper names''. By this strict distinction, because the term ''noun'' is used for a class of single words (''tree'', ''beauty''), only single-word proper names are proper nouns: ''Peter'' and ''Africa'' are both proper names and proper nouns; but ''Peter the Great'' and ''South Africa'', while they are proper names, are not proper nouns (though they could be said to function as proper
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s). The term ''common name'' is not much used to contrast with ''proper name'', but some linguists have used the term for that purpose. Sometimes proper names are called simply ''names'', but that term is often used more broadly. Words derived from proper names are sometimes called ''
proper adjective English orthography sometimes uses the term proper adjective to mean adjectives that take initial capital letters, and common adjective to mean those that do not. For example, a person from India is Indian—''Indian'' is a proper adjective. Etymo ...
s'' (or ''proper adverbs'', and so on), but not in mainstream linguistic theory. Not every noun or a noun phrase that refers to a unique entity is a proper name. ''Chastity,'' for instance, is a common noun, even if chastity is considered a unique abstract entity. Few proper names have only one possible referent: there are many places named ''
New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...
''; ''
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...
'' may refer to a planet, a god, a ship, a city in Florida, or a symphony; at least one person has been named ''
Mata Hari Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle; 7 August 187615 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari (), was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. She was executed ...
'', but so have a horse, a song, and three films; there are towns and people named ''
Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
'', as well as the company. In English, proper names in their primary application cannot normally be modified by articles or another determiner, although some may be taken to include the article ''the'', as in ''the Netherlands'', ''
the Roaring Forties ''The Roaring Forties'' (French: ''Les quarantièmes rugissants'') is a 1982 French drama film directed by Christian de Chalonge and starring Jacques Perrin, Julie Christie and Michel Serrault. The film was loosely based on the book ''The Stra ...
'', or ''
the Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically dr ...
''. A proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not (the Rolling Stones are not stones and do not roll; a woman named ''Rose'' is not a flower). If it had once been, it may no longer be so, for example, a location previously referred to as "the new town" may now have the proper name ''Newtown'', though it is no longer new and is now a city rather than a town. In English and many other languages, proper names and words derived from them are associated with capitalization; but the details are complex, and vary from language to language (French ''lundi'', ''Canada'', ''un homme canadien'', ''un Canadien''; English ''Monday'', ''Canada'', ''a Canadian man'', ''a Canadian''; Italian ''lunedì'', ''Canada'', ''un uomo canadese'', ''un canadese''). The study of proper names is sometimes called ''
onomastics Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An '' orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study. Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, ...
'' or ''onomatology'', while a rigorous analysis of the
semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
of proper names is a matter for
philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy of language), meanin ...
. Proper nouns are normally invariant for number: most are singular, but a few, referring for instance to mountain ranges or groups of islands, are plural (e.g. ''Hebrides''). Typically, English proper nouns are not preceded by an
article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: ...
(such as ''the'' or ''a'') or other
determiner A determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determine ...
(such as ''that'' or ''those''). Occasionally, what would otherwise be regarded as a proper noun is used as a common noun, in which case a plural form and a determiner are possible. Examples are in cases of
ellipsis The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
(for instance, ''the three Kennedys'' = ''the three members of the Kennedy family'') and
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
(for instance, ''the new Gandhi'', likening a person to Mahatma Gandhi).


Proper names

Current linguistics makes a distinction between ''proper nouns'' and ''proper names'' but this distinction is not universally observed and sometimes it is observed but not rigorously. When the distinction is made, proper nouns are limited to single words only (possibly with ''the''), while proper names include all proper nouns (in their primary applications) as well as
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s such as ''the United Kingdom'', ''North Carolina'', ''Royal Air Force'', and ''the White House''. Proper names can have a common noun or a proper noun as their
head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals ...
; ''the United Kingdom'', for example, is a proper name with the common noun ''kingdom'' as its head, and ''North Carolina'' is headed by the proper noun ''Carolina''. Especially as titles of works, but also as nicknames and the like, some proper names contain no noun and are not formed as noun phrases (the film ''
Being There ''Being There'' is a 1979 American satire film directed by Hal Ashby. Based on the 1970 novel of the same name by Jerzy Kosiński, it was adapted for the screen by Kosiński and the uncredited Robert C. Jones. The film stars Peter Sellers an ...
''; ''Hi De Ho'' as a nickname for
Cab Calloway Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, conductor and dancer. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer and became a popular vocalis ...
and as the title of a film about him). Proper names are also referred to (by linguists) as ''naming expressions''. Sometimes they are called simply ''names''; but that term is also used more broadly (as in "''chair'' is the name for something we sit on"); the latter type of name is called a ''common name'' to distinguish it from a ''proper name''. Common nouns are frequently used as components of proper names. Some examples are ''agency'', ''boulevard'', ''city'', ''day,'' and ''edition''. In such cases the common noun may determine the kind of entity, and a modifier determines the unique entity itself. For example: * The 16th robotic probe to land on the planet was assigned to study the north pole, and the 17th probe the south pole. :(common-noun senses throughout) * When Probe 17 overflew the South Pole, it passed directly over the place where Captain Scott's expedition ended. :(in this sentence, ''Probe 17'' is the proper name of a vessel, and ''South Pole'' is a proper name referring to Earth's south pole) * Sanjay lives on the beach road. :(the road that runs along the beach) * Sanjay lives on Beach Road. :(as a proper name, Beach Road may have nothing to do with the beach; it may be any distance from the waterfront) * My university has a school of medicine. :(no indication of the name of the university or its medical school) * The John A. Burns School of Medicine is located at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Proper nouns, and all proper names, differ from common nouns grammatically in English. They may take titles, such as ''Mr Harris'' or ''Senator Harris''. Otherwise, they normally only take modifiers that add emotive coloring, such as ''old Mrs Fletcher, poor Charles'', or ''historic York''; in a formal style, this may include ''the'', as in ''the inimitable Henry Higgins''. They may also take ''the'' in the manner of common nouns in order to establish the context in which they are unique: ''the young Mr Hamilton'' (not the old one), ''the Dr Brown I know''; or as proper nouns to define an aspect of the referent: ''the young Einstein'' (Einstein when he was young). The
indefinite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
''a'' may similarly be used to establish a new referent: ''the column was written by a 'or'' oneMary Price''. Proper names based on noun phrases differ grammatically from common noun phrases. They are fixed expressions, and cannot be modified internally: ''beautiful King's College'' is acceptable, but not ''King's famous College''. As with proper nouns, so with proper names more generally: they may only be unique within the appropriate context. For instance, India has a ministry of home affairs (a common-noun phrase) called the Ministry of Home Affairs (its proper name). Within the context of India, this identifies a unique organization. However, other countries may also have ministries of home affairs called "the Ministry of Home Affairs", but each refers to a unique object, so each is a proper name. Similarly, "Beach Road" is a unique road, though other towns may have their own roads named "Beach Road" as well. This is simply a matter of the pragmatics of naming, and of whether a naming convention provides identifiers that are unique; and this depends on the scope given by context.


Strong and weak proper names

Because they are used to refer to an individual entity, proper names are, by their nature, definite; so a
definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
would be redundant, and personal names (like ''John'') are used without an article or other determiner. However, some proper names (especially certain geographical names) are usually used with the definite article. These have been termed ''weak proper names'', in contrast with the more typical ''strong proper names'', which are normally used without an article. Entities with weak proper names include geographical features (e.g., ''the Mediterranean'', ''the Thames''), buildings (e.g., ''the Parthenon''), institutions (e.g., ''the House of Commons''), cities and districts (e.g., ''The Hague'', ''the Bronx''), works of literature (e.g., '' the Bible''), and newspapers and magazines (e.g., ''The Times'', ''The Economist'', ''the New Statesman''). Plural proper names are weak. Such plural proper names include mountain ranges (e.g., ''the Himalayas''), and collections of islands (e.g., ''the Hebrides''). The definite article is omitted when a weak proper noun is used attributively (e.g. "Hague residents are concerned ...", "... eight pints of Thames water ...").


Variants

Proper names often have a number of variants, for instance a formal variant (''David'', ''the United States of America'') and an informal variant (''Dave'', ''the United States'').


Capitalization

In languages that use
alphabetic An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
scripts and that distinguish lower and upper
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...
, there is usually an association between proper names and
capitalization Capitalization (American English) or capitalisation (British English) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term ...
. In German, all nouns are capitalized, but other words are also capitalized in proper names (not including composition titles), for instance: ''der Große Bär'' (the Great Bear,
Ursa Major Ursa Major (; also known as the Great Bear) is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear," referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa ...
). For proper names, as for several other kinds of words and phrases, the details are complex, and vary sharply from language to language. For example, expressions for days of the week and months of the year are capitalized in English, but not in Spanish, French, Swedish, or Finnish, though they may be understood as proper names in all of these. Languages differ in whether most elements of multiword proper names are capitalized (American English has ''House of Representatives'', in which
lexical word In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech ( abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...
s are capitalized) or only the initial element (as in Slovenian ''Državni zbor'', "National Assembly"). In Czech, multiword settlement names are capitalized throughout, but non-settlement names are only capitalized in the initial element, though with many exceptions.


History of capitalization

European alphabetic scripts only developed a distinction between upper case and lower case in medieval times so in the alphabetic scripts of ancient Greek and Latin proper names were not systematically marked. They are marked with modern capitalization, however, in many modern editions of ancient texts. In past centuries, orthographic practices in English varied widely. Capitalization was much less standardized than today. Documents from the 18th century show some writers capitalizing all nouns, and others capitalizing certain nouns based on varying ideas of their importance in the discussion. Historical documents from the early United States show some examples of this process: the end (but not the beginning) of the
Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
(1776) and all of the
Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these pr ...
(1787) show nearly all nouns capitalized; the
Bill of Rights A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pr ...
(1789) capitalizes a few common nouns but not most of them; and the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment (1865) capitalizes only proper nouns. In Danish, from the 17th century until the orthographic reform of 1948, all nouns were capitalized.Kjeld Kristensen: Dansk for svenskere, page 133, Gleerups 1986, ISBN 91-38-61407-3


Modern English capitalization of proper nouns

In modern
English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, ...
, it is the norm for recognized proper names to be capitalized. The few clear exceptions include ''summer'' and ''winter'' (contrast ''July'' and ''Christmas''). It is also standard that most capitalizing of common nouns is considered incorrect, except of course when the capitalization is simply a matter of text styling, as at the start of a sentence or in titles and other headings. See Letter case § Title case. Although these rules have been standardized, there are enough gray areas that it can often be unclear both whether an item qualifies as a proper name and whether it should be capitalized: "the
Cuban missile crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
" is often capitalized ("
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
") and often not, regardless of its syntactic status or its function in discourse. Most
style guide A style guide or manual of style is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It is often called a style sheet, although that term also has multiple other meanings. The standards can be applied either for gene ...
s give decisive recommendations on capitalization, but not all of them go into detail on how to decide in these gray areas if words are proper nouns or not and should be capitalized or not. Words or phrases that are neither proper nouns nor derived from proper nouns are often capitalized in present-day English: ''Dr'', ''Baptist'', ''Congregationalism'', ''His'' and ''He'' in reference to the Abrahamic deity (God). For some such words, capitalization is optional or dependent on context: ''northerner'' or ''Northerner''; ''aboriginal trees'' but '' Aboriginal land rights in Australia''. When ''the'' comes at the start of a proper name, as in ''the White House'', it is not normally capitalized unless it is a formal part of a title (of a book, film, or other artistic creation, as in '' The Keys to the Kingdom''). Nouns and noun phrases that are not proper may be uniformly capitalized to indicate that they are definitive and regimented in their application (compare brand names, discussed below). For example, ''Mountain Bluebird'' does not identify a unique individual, and it is not a proper name but a so-called
common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...
(somewhat misleadingly, because this is not intended as a contrast with the term ''proper name''). Such capitalization indicates that the term is a conventional designation for exactly that species (''Sialia currucoides''), not for just any bluebird that happens to live in the mountains. Words or phrases derived from proper names are generally capitalized, even when they are not themselves proper names. For example, ''Londoner'' is capitalized because it derives from the proper name ''London'', but it is not itself a proper name (it can be limited: ''the Londoner'', ''some Londoners''). Similarly, ''African'', ''Africanize'', and ''Africanism'' are not proper names, but are capitalized because ''Africa'' is a proper name. Adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and derived common nouns that are capitalized (''Swiss'' in ''Swiss cheese''; ''Anglicize''; ''Calvinistically''; ''Petrarchism'') are sometimes loosely called ''proper adjectives'' (and so on), but not in mainstream linguistics. Which of these items are capitalized may be merely conventional. ''Abrahamic'', ''Buddhist'', ''Hollywoodize'', ''Freudianism'', and ''Reagonomics'' are capitalized; ''quixotic'', ''bowdlerize'', ''mesmerism'', and ''pasteurization'' are not; ''aeolian'' and ''alpinism'' may be capitalized or not. Some words or some
homonyms In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definition ...
(depending on how a body of study defines "
word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...
") have one meaning when capitalized and another when not. Sometimes the capitalized variant is a proper noun (the ''Moon''; dedicated to ''God''; ''Smith'''s apprentice) and the other variant is not (the third ''moon'' of Saturn; a Greek ''god''; the ''smith'''s apprentice). Sometimes neither is a proper noun (a ''swede'' in the soup; a ''Swede'' who came to see me). Such words that vary according to
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...
are sometimes called
capitonym A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning (and sometimes pronunciation) when it is capitalized; the capitalization usually applies due to one form being a proper noun or eponym. It is a portmanteau of the word ''capital'' with the suffix '' ...
s (although only rarely: this term is scarcely used in linguistic theory and does not appear in the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...
'').


Brand names

In most alphabetic languages,
brand names A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
and other commercial terms that are nouns or noun phrases are capitalized whether or not they count as proper names. Not all brand names are proper names, and not all proper names are brand names. * ''
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
'' is a proper name, referring to a specific company. But if ''Microsoft'' is given a non-standard secondary application, in the role of a common noun, these usages are accepted: "The ''Microsofts'' of this world"; "That's not the ''Microsoft'' I know!"; "The company aspired to be another ''Microsoft''." * ''
Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ou ...
'' is similarly a proper name referring to a specific company. But unlike ''Microsoft'', it is also used in the role of a common noun to refer to products of the named company: "He drove a ''Chevrolet''" (a particular vehicle); "The ''Chevrolets'' of the 1960s" (classes of vehicles). In these uses, ''Chevrolet'' does not function as a proper name. * ''
Corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...
'' (referring to a car produced by the company Chevrolet) is not a proper name: it can be pluralized (French and English ''Corvettes''); and it can take a definite article or other
determiner A determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determine ...
or modifier: "the ''Corvette''", "la ''Corvette''"; "my ''Corvette''", "ma ''Corvette''"; "another new ''Corvette''", "une autre nouvelle ''Corvette''". Similarly, ''Chevrolet Corvette'' is not a proper name: "We owned three ''Chevrolet Corvettes''." It contrasts with the uncapitalized ''
corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...
'', a kind of warship.


Alternative marking of proper names

In non-alphabetic scripts, proper names are sometimes marked by other means. In
Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...
, parts of a royal name were enclosed in a
cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...
: an oval with a line at one end. In
Chinese script Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...
, a proper name mark (a kind of
underline An underscore, ; also called an underline, low line, or low dash; is a line drawn under a segment of text. In proofreading, underscoring is a convention that says "set this text in italic type", traditionally used on manuscript or typescript as ...
) has sometimes been used to indicate a proper name. In the standard
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
system of romanization for Mandarin Chinese, capitalization is used to mark proper names, with some complexities because of different Chinese classifications of nominal types, and even different notions of such broad categories as ''word'' and ''phrase''.
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
and other languages written in the
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
script, along with many other languages using alphabetic or
syllabic Syllabic may refer to: *Syllable, a unit of speech sound, considered the building block of words **Syllabic consonant, a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable *Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables *Abugida, writing system ...
scripts, do not distinguish upper and lower case and do not mark proper names systematically.


Acquisition and cognition

There is evidence from brain disorders such as
aphasia Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in ...
that proper names and common names are processed differently by the brain. There also appear to be differences in language acquisition. Although Japanese does not distinguish overtly between common and proper nouns, two-year-old children learning Japanese distinguished between names for categories of object (equivalent to common names) and names of individuals (equivalent to proper names): When a previously unknown label was applied to an unfamiliar object, the children assumed that the label designated the class of object (i.e. they treated the label as the common name of that object), regardless of whether the object was inanimate or not. However, ''if the object already had an established name'', there was a difference between inanimate objects and animals: * for inanimate objects, the children tended to interpret the new label as a sub-class, but * for animals they tended to interpret the label as a name for the individual animal (i.e. a proper name). In English, children employ different strategies depending on the type of referent but also rely on syntactic cues, such as the presence or absence of the determiner "the" to differentiate between common and proper nouns when first learned.


See also

*
Name A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A persona ...
* Proper name (philosophy)


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ''Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary'' (1993; 10th ed.). Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster. . * ''Online Dictionary of Language Terminology'' DTL Steeves, Jon (ed.)
http://www.odlt.org
* ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' (2000; 4th ed.). Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Proper Noun Nouns by type