English Capitalization Rules: What Gets a Capital

1. Names, not importance

A capital letter in an English sentence says one thing: this is a name. Microsoft, the Thames, Ramadan, Friday and Portuguese are names of one particular company, river, month, day or language. Company, river, meeting and customer are not, however important they are to your sentence.

Two things follow. First, English does not capitalize nouns as a class, and it does not capitalize a word to show respect or emphasis — “our valued Customers” and “the Project” look odd to an English reader. Second, the same word can go either way depending on whether it is being used as a name: the president of the club but President Ramos; a southern state but the American South.

2. Where your first language misleads you

Capitalization errors are rarely random. They usually copy the system of the writer’s first language, which is why a German speaker and a Spanish speaker tend to make opposite mistakes.

Two English rules surprise almost everyone. The pronoun I is always a capital, although ich, je and yo are not. And nationality and language words keep their capital as adjectives: a French bank, Japanese food, Arabic script, Islamic art.

3. What always takes a capital

These categories are capitalized in every mainstream style of English:

• The first word of a sentence, and the pronoun I.
• Names of people, places and organizations: Amira Haddad, Lagos, the Andes, the United Nations, Samsung. When a common word is part of the name, it is capitalized too: the Pacific Ocean, Lake Victoria, Oxford University, the Ministry of Finance.
• Days, months and holidays: Tuesday, August, Eid al-Fitr, Diwali, Christmas, Lunar New Year.
• Languages, nationalities, ethnic and religious groups, as nouns and adjectives: Korean, a Nigerian engineer, Hindu, Catholic, Muslim.
• Brands and product names, written the way the owner writes them: Toyota, iPhone, eBay.
• Specific named events, documents and periods: the Olympic Games, the Paris Agreement, the Renaissance.

If a sentence begins with a brand that starts in lowercase, such as iPhone, most writers rephrase rather than write “IPhone”: The new iPhone…

4. Job titles and forms of address

A formal title is capitalized when it comes directly before a name and works as part of it: President Ramos, Professor Okafor, Dr. Evans, Senator Murray. The same word is lowercase when it describes a role: Ramos is the president, our chief executive, Ana Ruiz, she was promoted to manager.

Only a small set of words work as titles before a name in English — mainly political, academic, medical, military and religious ones. Everyday job titles do not. In Korean, Japanese and Chinese a person is often addressed by surname plus position (김 부장님, 田中部長, 王经理), and German has a similar tradition with titles such as Herr Direktor. Translated directly, this gives “Manager Kim” or “Director Tanaka”, which reads as a translation in English. Write Ms. Kim, the sales manager, or simply address the person as Ms. Kim.

Email signatures, business cards, CVs and LinkedIn profiles are a separate case. There, job titles stand alone like labels, and capitals are normal: Ana Ruiz, Head of Marketing. It is in the running text of a sentence that lowercase is the safer choice.

5. Seasons, directions and other lowercase words

These words feel like names, but English treats them as ordinary nouns. They are where writers from every language background over-capitalize.

• Seasons are lowercase: in spring, last winter, autumn/fall 2027. They take a capital only inside a name: the Winter Olympics, the Mid-Autumn Festival.
• Compass directions are lowercase when they describe a direction or position: drive north, the west side of the building, southern Spain, northern India. They are capitalized as part of a place name or a recognized region: South Africa, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, the American South.
• School subjects are lowercase (I study physics and economics) unless they are languages (English, Arabic) or the name of a particular course (Physics 101).
• Family words are lowercase after a possessive (my mother, her uncle) and capitalized when used as a name (Thanks, Mom; Ask Grandpa).
• General words for organizations and places: the company, the university, the city center, head office. Capitalize them only in the full name: the University of Toronto.

6. Where style guides disagree

Not every capitalization question has one right answer. In these cases, follow your organization’s style guide if it has one, and otherwise pick one form and use it consistently.

• Government. Most American and many British style guides write the French government, the government announced. British official documents often capitalize the Government when it means the current national government.
• Internet. Older texts write the Internet; most current style guides, including AP since 2016, write the internet.
• Your own company’s departments. The marketing department is the general form, but many companies capitalize their own departments in internal documents (Please contact Finance).
• Regions. British writers may write the North for the north of England; others write the north.
• After a colon. Lowercase is the default when a phrase follows. If a full sentence follows, American guides vary and British usage generally keeps lowercase.

7. Headlines: title case or sentence case

Titles of books, articles, reports and slides use one of two systems:

The details of title case differ between guides. Chicago style lowercases prepositions of any length (Walking through the Forest); APA style capitalizes words of four or more letters (Walking Through the Forest). Short verbs are always capitalized, which catches many people out: What It Is, Where to Go.

Sentence case is increasingly common on websites, in British newspapers, in slide decks and in email subject lines, and it is the easier system to apply consistently. Whichever you choose, use it for every heading in the same document.

8. Test yourself

Choose the correct form in each pair, then open the answer.

Capitals are only one part of punctuation. For commas and semicolons, try the punctuation exercises.