The way we describe language is sometimes confusing. Even people who’ve spoken English their entire lives, for instance, may struggle to explain the difference between ‘proper’ and ‘common’ nouns.
Nevertheless, this distinction is worth knowing, as it tells you when you should capitalise a word and helps ensure your written work is at a high standard.
A common noun is a generic naming word used to identify a person, place or thing. Common nouns can refer to multiple examples of the same thing.
For instance, Snoopy and Gnasher can both be described as ‘cartoons’ and ‘dogs’, as the terms ‘cartoon’ and ‘dog’ are common nouns applicable to any cartoon or dog.
Common nouns therefore designate a class of things rather than specific entities. They can be used abstractly (e.g. to discuss cats and dogs in general):
I like dogs, but I don’t like cats.
Or to identify something as an example of the common noun (e.g. a particular dog or cat):
I like my dog, but I don’t like the cat next door.
Common nouns include everything from objects and actions to ideas and emotions. The one thing they have in common is they’re only capitalised at the beginning of a sentence (or sometimes as part of a title):
Milk is high in calcium.
In the above, the common noun ‘Milk’ is capitalised because it’s at the start of the sentence, while and ‘calcium’ (also a common noun) is lower case.
Proper nouns are also naming words, but refer to specific entities rather than generic types. The proper nouns ‘Snoopy’ and ‘Gnasher’, for instance, name specific cartoon dogs, so we wouldn’t use ‘Snoopy’ or ‘Gnasher’ to refer to another cartoon dog or cartoon dogs in general.
As well as fictional hounds, proper nouns include planets, brands, people, countries, concepts and many other things, though each one always names a distinct thing (so ‘Germany’ is a proper noun that names a specific country, and ‘Superman’ names a particular superhero).
Unlike common nouns, proper nouns are always capitalised, no matter where they appear in a sentence:
I wish there was a German version of Superman.
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In the above, ‘German’ and ‘Superman’ are both capitalised because they’re proper nouns.
Many proper nouns have a common noun equivalent. Below, we provide a few examples of common nouns alongside proper-noun examples (e.g. the proper noun ‘Zeus’ is paired with the common noun ‘god’ because Zeus was an ancient Greek god):
Common Noun
Proper Nouns
god
God, Zeus, Quetzalcoatl
dog
Gnasher, Snoopy, Clifford the Big Red Dog
city
London, Paris, New York
football club
rock star
David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed
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