When you think about it, nouns, along with verbs, form the basic structure of the English language. After all, a noun is a naming word. It’s used to identify, or name, a person, place, thing, animal, or idea. When small children are learning to talk usually the first words they learn are nouns, like “mama” or “daddy.”
A noun, and a proper noun as well, have many different functions in a sentence. They can act as a subject, an adjective, an adverb, as a direct or indirect object, an appositive, or a subject or object complement. In addition to different functions, there are different types of nouns, too. This article will concentrate on one particular type, namely the proper noun.
What is a Proper Noun?
While a noun names a person, place, thing, or idea a proper noun gets more specific. It gives us the actual name of the person, place, thing, or idea. A person’s name is a proper noun. So are the names of states, streets, rivers, oceans, countries, companies, institutions, churches, and more. You can see more specific examples of a proper noun below.
Proper Noun Examples
One of the easiest ways to fully grasp the meaning of proper nouns is to compare them with common nouns. A common noun refers to the general names of things. Look around you and name the items you see. A desk, a chair, a lamp, a window, a door.
When you go shopping, who do you see? A man, a child, a salesperson, an attendant, a toddler, a policeman. These are all general, common nouns. Now let’s compare common nouns to proper nouns.
Common Noun vs Proper Noun
Common Noun | Proper Noun |
man | James |
woman | Julie |
state | California |
company | General Motors |
store | Neiman Marcus |
restaurant | Applebee’s |
mountain | Mckinley |
country | France |
waitress | Betty |
chair | La-Z-Boy |
soldier | Lieutenant Mark Davis |
river | the Mississippi River |
institution | University of Georgia |
Here are some example sentences to further show the difference between a common noun and a proper noun.
State = common noun; California = proper noun.
Soldier = common noun; Lieutenant Mark Davis = proper noun.
Restaurant, waitress = common noun; Applebee’s, Betty = proper noun.
Capitalizing a Proper Noun
The rules for capitalizing a proper noun are pretty simple. A proper noun always begin with a capital letter.
However there are times when a word can be used as either a common noun or proper noun and you might get confused as to when you should use the capitalized form. For example, “father” can either be common or proper.
One rule for thumb is that if you are using the word as a title and name it should be capitalized.
See the difference? In the first example the word was used more generally as a common noun. In the second example, the word was used like a name. In this instance the term “father” took the place of the actual name, such as “Bob.”
To make things a little clearer for you, here is a list of proper nouns categories.
- Holidays: Christmas, New Year’s Day, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving
- Geographical areas: San Francisco, Europe, Spain, the Nile River
- People and pets: Mrs. Caroline Jones, Rip Van Winkle, Snoopy
- Books, Newspapers, Magazines: Wuthering Heights, Atlanta Journal, Southern Living
- Companies and organizations: Google, ChildFund International, General Electric
- Religious terms: Christian, Methodist, Hindu, God, Allah
- Places, buildings: Yellowstone National Park, Empire State Building, Ritz-Carlton
- Titles: President Bush, King George, Queen Elizabeth, Judge Judy (titles are not capitalized when they’re referred to in general terms. For example: The criminal appeared before the judge.
- Languages: English, French, Italian
- Brand names: Coach, Pepsi, Lucky
- Possessive Proper Nouns
Creating the possessive form of a proper noun follows the same rule as the possessive of a common noun. Add ‘s if the word is singular or if the word ends in s just the apostrophe. Plural nouns that end in s get an apostrophe at the end.
- Mary’s coat
- United States’ health care program
- Georgia’s swampland
- Kansas’ prairie lands
Proper names that end in s are made possessive by adding ‘s: Charles’s house. It’s also correct to just add the apostrophe, such as with Jesus’ mother.