Proper noun - wikipedia Proper noun `` Common noun '' redirects here. It is not to be confused with common name or common gender. `` Proper name '' redirects here. For more abstract semantic treatments, see Proper name ( philosophy ). A proper noun is a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as London, Jupiter, Sarah, or Microsoft, as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities ( city, planet, person, corporation ), or non-unique instances of a specific class ( a city, 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 Azores, the Pleiades ). 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. 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 adjectives ( or proper adverbs, and so on ), but not in mainstream linguistic theory. Not every noun or noun phrase that refers to a unique entity is a proper name. Blackness and chastity are common nouns, even if blackness and chastity are considered unique abstract entities. Few proper names have only one possible referent : there are many places named New Haven ; Jupiter may refer to a planet, a god, a ship, or a symphony ; at least one person has been named Mata Hari, but so have a horse, a song, and three films ; there are towns and people named Toyota, as well as the company. In English, proper names in their primary application can not normally be modified by an article or other determiner ( such as any or another ), although some may be taken to include the article the, as in the Netherlands, the Roaring Forties, or the Rolling Stones. A proper name may appear to refer by having 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 ). Or if it had once been descriptive ( and then perhaps not even a proper name at all ), it may no longer be so ( 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, canadien ; English Monday, Canada, Canadian ). The study of proper names is sometimes called onomastics or onomatology while a rigorous analysis of the semantics of proper names is a matter for philosophy of language. Contents 1 Common and proper nouns 2 Proper names 2.1 Strong and weak proper names 2.2 Variants 3 Capitalization 3.1 English capitalization of proper nouns 3.1. 1 Modern standardization and exceptions 3.1. 2 Historical variation 3.2 Brand names 3.3 Alternative marking of proper names 4 Acquisition and cognition 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 Bibliography Common and proper nouns In linguistics, common nouns and proper nouns are distinct subclasses of nouns. A common noun refers to a class of entity ( e.g. dog ), whereas a proper noun refers to an individual entity ( e.g. John or Kennedy ) or a collection of entities ( e.g. Hebrides ). 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 ( the or a ) or other determiners ( not, for instance, a John, the Kennedy, or many Hebrides ). 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 ( for instance the three Kennedys, the new 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 phrases such as United Kingdom, North Carolina, Royal Air Force, and the White House. 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 ; Hi De Ho as a nickname for Cab Calloway 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. 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 a may similarly be used to establish a new referent : the column was written by a ( or one ) Mary Price. Proper names based on noun phrases differ grammatically from common noun phrases. They are fixed expressions, and can not 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 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 scripts and that distinguish lower and upper case, there is usually an association between proper names and capitalization. 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 ). 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 words 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. English capitalization of proper nouns Modern standardization and exceptions In modern English orthography, it is the norm for recognized proper names to be capitalized. The few clear exceptions include summer and winter ( contrast April and Easter ). 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 '' is often capitalized ( `` Cuban Missile Crisis '' ) and often not, regardless of its syntactic status or its function in discourse. Most style guides 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 earlier ). For example, Mountain Bluebird does not identify a unique individual, and it is not a proper name but a so - called common name ( 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 ( depending on how a body of study defines `` word '' ) 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 are sometimes called capitonyms ( although only rarely : this term is scarcely used in linguistic theory and does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary ). Historical variation The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new article, as appropriate. ( July 2015 ) 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 ( 1776 ) and all of the Constitution ( 1787 ) show nearly all nouns capitalized ; the Bill of Rights ( 1789 ) capitalizes a few common nouns but not most of them ; and the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment ( 1865 ) capitalizes only proper nouns. Brand names In most alphabetic languages brand names 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 is a proper name, referring to a specific company. English does not allow these phrases, unless Microsoft is treated, by a non-standard secondary application, in the role of a common noun : * `` Microsofts '' ; * `` the Microsoft '' ; * `` another Microsoft ''. Chevrolet 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 ( 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 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. '' Alternative marking of proper names In non-alphabetic scripts proper names are sometimes marked by other means. In Egyptian hieroglyphs, parts of a royal name were enclosed in a cartouche : an oval with a line at one end. In Chinese script, a proper name mark ( a kind of underline ) has sometimes been used to indicate a proper name. In the standard Pinyin 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. 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. Sanskrit and other languages written in the Devanagari script, along with many other languages using alphabetic or syllabic 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 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 Proper name ( philosophy ) Notes Jump up ^ The distinction is recognized in the OED entry `` proper, adj., n., and adv. '' The relevant lemmas within the entry : `` proper noun n. Grammar a noun that designates an individual person, place, organization, animal, ship, etc., and is usually written with an initial capital letter ; cf. proper name n... `` ; `` proper name n... a name, consisting of a proper noun or noun phrase including a proper noun, that designates an individual person, place, organization, tame animal, ship, etc., and is usually written with an initial capital letter... ``. See also the Oxford Modern English Grammar and The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. In a section of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language headed `` The distinction between proper names and proper nouns '', Huddleston and Pullum write : `` In their primary use proper names normally refer to the particular entities that they name : in this use they have the syntactic status of NPs... Proper nouns, by contrast, are word - level units belonging to the category noun... Proper nouns are nouns which are specialised to the function of heading proper names. '' Jump up ^ The author distinguishes the two terms ( including in separate index entries ), but elsewhere in the text he conflates them. This conflation runs counter to the accepted definition of noun as denoting a class of single words, as opposed to phrases as higher - level elements of clauses and sentences -- a definition that he himself gives ( on p. 627, for example ). Jump up ^ The authors give as an example the proper name New Zealand, which includes the proper noun Zealand as its head. Jump up ^ Such guides include AMA Manual of Style and Associated Press Stylebook. The major US guide is Chicago Manual of Style ; the major British one is New Hart 's Rules. According to both of these, proper names are generally capitalized, but some apparent exceptions are made, and many nouns and noun phrases that are not presented as proper names include capitalization. For example, Scientific Style and Format : The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers ( 8th edition, 2014 ) does not appeal to proper names in discussion of trademarks ( `` Aspirin '', for applicable countries ; 9.7. 7 ) or biological taxa ( `` The Liliaceae are very diverse '' ; 22.3. 1.4 ), except to mention that component proper nouns are capitalized normally ( `` Capitalize other parts of a virus name only if they are proper nouns :... Sandfly fever Naples virus '' ; 22.3. 5.2 ). The guides vary in their recommendations. Valentine et al. ( 1996 ) cite dictionaries and grammars in an effort to settle the scope of the term proper name, but decide ( against the majority ) not to include expressions for days of the week or months of the year. They cite as evidence the fact that French does not capitalize these. Jump up ^ `` This list (... a check - list, from the American Ornithologists ' Union ) makes sure that each capitalized common name corresponds to one and only one scientific name and each scientific name corresponds to one and only capitalized common name. '' Jump up ^ The authors use Cortina ( manufactured by the company Ford ) as an example of a `` tradename but not a proper name. '' Jump up ^ The authors distinguish proper nouns, common nouns, abstract nouns, material nouns, and collective nouns. References Jump up ^ Lester & Beason 2005, p. 4. Jump up ^ Anderson 2007, pp. 3 -- 5. Jump up ^ Anderson 2007, p. 3. Jump up ^ Valentine, Brennen & Brédart 2002, pp. 2 -- 5. Jump up ^ Leech 2006, p. 96. Jump up ^ Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 515 -- 516. Jump up ^ Aarts 2011, pp. 42, 57. Jump up ^ Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 515 -- 522. ^ Jump up to : Huddleston & Pullum 2002, p. 516. Jump up ^ Chalker 1992, p. 813. Jump up ^ Greenbaum 1996, p. 97. ^ Jump up to : Leech 2006, p. 66. Jump up ^ Jespersen 2013, pp. 64 -- 71. Jump up ^ Quirk et al. 1985, pp. 288ff. ^ Jump up to : Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 517 -- 518. Jump up ^ Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 1758 -- 1759. Jump up ^ AMA 2007. Jump up ^ Associated Press 2007. Jump up ^ Dunn & Alderfer 2006, p. 354. Jump up ^ Quinn 2005, p. 106. Jump up ^ Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 521 -- 522. Jump up ^ Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 521 -- 522, 1758. Jump up ^ Collier & Manley 2003, p. 20. Jump up ^ Binyong & Felley 1990, pp. 138 -- 190. Jump up ^ Po - Ching & Rimmington 2006, pp. 10 -- 13. Jump up ^ Packard 2000, pp. 106 -- 109. Jump up ^ Robsona et al. 2004. Jump up ^ Imai & Haryu 2001. Jump up ^ Katz, Baker & Macnamara 1974. Bibliography Aarts, Bas ( 2011 ). Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford : Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 165047 - 5. Iverson, Cheryl, ed. ( 2007 ). AMA Manual of Style ( 10th ed. ). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 517633 - 9. Anderson, John Mathieson ( 2007 ). The Grammar of Names. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 929741 - 2. Associated Press Stylebook ( 42nd ed. ). The Associated Press, Basic Books. 2007. ISBN 978 - 0 - 465 - 00489 - 8. Binyong, Yin ; Felley, Mary ( 1990 ). Chinese Romanization : Pronunciation and Orthography. Beijing : Sinolingua. ISBN 978 - 7 - 80052 - 148 - 5. Burridge, Kate ( November 2002 ). `` New Standards in a Glorious Grammar : Review of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum ( eds ) ''. Australian Book Review. Wiley ( 246 ) : 62 -- 63. Chalker, Sylvia ( 1992 ). `` Proper noun ''. In McArthur, Tom. ' The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford : Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 214183 - 5. Collier, Mark ; Manley, Bill ( 2003 ). How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs. University of California Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 520 - 23949 - 4. Dunn, Jon Lloyd ; Alderfer, Jonathan K. ( 2006 ). National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978 - 0 - 7922 - 5314 - 3. Greenbaum, Sidney ( 1996 ). The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 861250 - 6. Huddleston, Rodney ; Pullum, Geoffrey ( 2002 ). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 - 521 - 43146 - 8. Imai, Mutsumi ; Haryu, Etsuko ( 2001 ). `` Learning Proper Nouns and Common Nouns without Clues from Syntax ''. Child Development. Wiley. 72 ( 3 ) : 787 -- 802. doi : 10.1111 / 1467 - 8624.00315. ISSN 0009 - 3920. Jespersen, Otto ( 2013 ) ( First published 1996 ). The Philosophy of Grammar. Routledge. ISBN 978 - 1 - 135 - 66575 - 3. Katz, Nancy ; Baker, Erica ; Macnamara, John ( 1974 ). `` What 's in a name ? A study of how children learn common and proper names ''. Child Development. Wiley. 45 ( 2 ) : 469 -- 473. doi : 10.2307 / 1127970. ISSN 0009 - 3920. JSTOR 1127970. Leech, Geoffrey ( 2006 ). A Glossary of English Grammar. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 7486 - 1729 - 6. Lester, Mark ; Beason, Larry ( 2005 ). The McGraw - Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage. New York : McGraw - Hill. ISBN 0 - 07 - 144133 - 6. Packard, Jerome L. ( 2000 ). The Morphology of Chinese : A Linguistic and Cognitive Approach. Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978 - 1 - 139 - 43166 - 8. Po - Ching, Yip ; Rimmington, Don ( 2006 ). Chinese : An Essential Grammar ( 2nd ed. ). Oxford : Taylor & Francis ( Routledge ). ISBN 978 - 0 - 203 - 96979 - 3. Quinn, Charles ( 2005 ). A Nature Guide to the Southwest Tahoe Basin. Charles Quinn. ISBN 978 - 0 - 9708895 - 4 - 6. Quirk, Randolph ; Greenbaum, Sidney ; Leech, Geoffrey ; Svartvik, Jan ( 1985 ). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Harlow : Longman. ISBN 978 - 0 - 582 - 51734 - 9. Robsona, Jo ; Marshalla, Jane ; Pringa, Tim ; Montagua, Ann ; Chiatb, Shula ( 2004 ). `` Processing proper nouns in aphasia : Evidence from assessment and therapy ''. Aphasiology. Taylor & Francis. 18 ( 10 ) : 917 -- 935. doi : 10.1080 / 02687030444000462. Valentine, Tim ; Brennen, Tim ; Brédart, Serge ( 2002 ) ( First published 1996 ). The Cognitive Psychology of Proper Names : On the Importance of Being Ernest. Oxford : Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978 - 1 - 134 - 77956 - 7. Merriam - Webster 's Collegiate Dictionary ( 1993 ; 10th ed. ). Springfield, Massachusetts : Merriam - Webster. ISBN 978 - 0 - 87779 - 707 - 4. Online Dictionary of Language Terminology ( ODTL ). Steeves, Jon ( ed. ). http://www.odlt.org. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language ( 2000 ; 4th ed. ). Boston and New York : Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978 - 0 - 395 - 82517 - 4. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Proper_noun&oldid=834452412 '' Categories : Nouns by type Hidden categories : Articles with limited geographic scope from July 2015 USA - centric Wikipedia articles in need of updating from June 2016 Talk Variants Contents About Wikipedia Afrikaans Bân - lâm - gú Brezhoneg Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Eesti Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska Italiano Kiswahili Latina Latviešu Magyar Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Plattdüütsch Polski Português Română Русский Саха тыла Simple English Slovenčina Slovenščina Suomi Svenska Татарча / tatarça Türkçe Українська اردو Walon 31 more Edit links This page was last edited on 5 April 2018, at 20 : 22. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. 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Question: is a name a noun or a pronoun
Answer: a noun