Proper Nouns

Your name is a proper noun. A proper noun is the special word that we use for a person, place or organization, like John, Marie, London, France or Sony. A name is a noun, but a very special noun - a proper noun. English proper nouns have special rules.

common noun	proper noun
man, boy	John
woman, girl	Mary
country, town	England, London
company	Ford, Sony
shop, restaurant	Amazon, Subway
month, day of the week	January, Sunday
book, film	War and Peace, Titanic

Capital Letters with Proper Nouns

RULE: We always use a Capital Letter for the first letter of a name or proper noun. This includes names of people, places, companies, days of the week and months. For example:

• They like Anthony. (not They like anthony.)
• I live in England.
• She works for Sony.
• The last day in January is a Monday.
• We saw Titanic in the Odeon Cinema.

In normal grammatical writing, there are NO exceptions to this rule. Sometimes, however, for stylistic reasons, people may choose to ignore the rule to give their writing a unique or "modern" look. This is typically seen in advertisements or company logos. For correct writing, and especially in exams, we recommend that you observe the rule without fail.

Proper Nouns without THE

We do not use "the" with names of people. For example:

first names	Bill (not the Bill)
	Hilary
surnames	Clinton
	Gates
full names	Hilary Gates

We do not normally use "the" with names of companies. For example:

• Renault, Ford, Sony, EnglishClub (not the EnglishClub)
• General Motors, Air France, British Airways
• Warner Brothers, Brown & Son Ltd

If the full (registered) name of a company starts with "The", then we use "The" if we use the full name, for example:

• The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd

In this case, "The" is part of the company's name and must be capitalised, like all names.

We do not normally use "the" for shops, banks, hotels etc named after a founder or other person (with -'s or -s). For example:

shops	Harrods, Marks & Spencer, Macy's
banks	Barclays Bank
hotels, restaurants	Steve's Hotel, Joe's Cafe, McDonald's
churches, cathedrals	St John's Church, St Peter's Cathedral

We do not normally use "the" with names of places. For example:

towns	Washington (not The Washington), Paris, Tokyo
states, regions	Texas, Kent, Eastern Europe
countries	England, Italy, Brazil
continents	Asia, Europe, North America
islands	Corsica
mountains	Everest

Exception! If a country name includes "States","Kingdom", "Republic" etc, we use "the":

states	the United States, the US, the United States of America, the USA
kingdom	the United Kingdom, the UK
republic	the French Republic

We do not use "the" with "President/Doctor/Mr etc + Name":

the president, the king	President Bush (not the President Bush)
the captain, the detective	Captain Kirk, Detective Colombo
the doctor, the professor	Doctor Well, Dr Well, Professor Dolittle
my uncle, your aunt	Uncle Jack, Aunt Jill
	Mr Gates (not the Mr Gates), Mrs Clinton, Miss Black

Look at these example sentences:

• I wanted to speak to the doctor.
• I wanted to speak to Doctor Brown.
• Who was the president before President Kennedy?

We do not use "the" with "Lake/Mount + Name":

the lake	Lake Victoria
the mount	Mount Everest

Look at this example sentence:

• We live beside Lake Victoria. We have a fantastic view across the lake.

We do not normally use "the" for roads, streets, squares, parks etc:

streets etc	Oxford Street, Trenholme Road, Fifth Avenue
squares etc	Trafalgar Square, Oundle Place, Piccadilly Circus
parks etc	Central Park, Kew Gardens

Many big, important buildings have names made of two words (for example, Kennedy Airport). If the first word is the name of a person or place, we do not normally use "the":

people	Kennedy Airport, Alexander Palace, St Paul's Cathedral
places	Heathrow Airport, Waterloo Station, Edinburgh Castle

Proper Nouns with THE

We normally use "the" for country names that include "States","Kingdom", "Republic" etc:

States	the United States of America/the USA
Kingdom	the United Kingdom/the UK
Republic	the French Republic

We normally use "the" for names of canals, rivers, seas and oceans:

canals	the Suez Canal
rivers	the River Nile, the Nile
seas	the Mediterranean Sea, the Mediterranean
oceans	the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific

We normally use "the" for plural names of people and places:

people (families, for example)	the Clintons
countries	the Philippines, the United States
island groups	the Virgin Islands, the British Isles
mountain ranges	the Himalayas, the Alps

Look at these sentences:

• I saw the Clintons today. It was Bill's birthday.
• Trinidad is the largest island in the West Indies.
• Mount Everest is in the Himalayas.

We normally use "the" with the following sorts of names:

hotels, restaurants	the Ritz Hotel, the Peking Restaurant
banks	the National Westminster Bank
cinemas, theatres	the Royal Theatre, the ABC Cinema
museums	the British Museum, the National Gallery
buildings	the White House, the Crystal Palace
newspapers	the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Post
organisations	the United Nations, the BBC, the European Union

We normally use "the" for names made with "of":

• the Tower of London
• the Gulf of Siam
• the Tropic of Cancer
• the London School of Economics
• the Bank of France
• the Statue of Liberty