# Are their language or cultural standards for capitalizing people's names that differ from English?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-their-language-or-cultural-standards-for-capitalizing-peoples-names-that-differ-from-english/700960>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 10, 2014, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-their-language-or-cultural-standards-for-capitalizing-peoples-names-that-differ-from-english/700960 "2014-10-10T13:39:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-their-language-or-cultural-standards-for-capitalizing-peoples-names-that-differ-from-english/700960/21 "2014-10-11T08:39:02Z")

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Also, keep in mind that there are languages that do not have both capital and small letters, and, of course, many languages that do not really have letters at all.

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**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-their-language-or-cultural-standards-for-capitalizing-peoples-names-that-differ-from-english/700960/22 "2014-10-11T10:00:16Z")

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> [@Mr.Milton](#):
>
> In German, all proper nouns are capitalized, but where a preposition is a part of a name, it is not. To do so would be a faux pas. For example:
> 
> Manfred von Richthofen OK  
> Manfred Von Richthofen Ignorant Auslander
> 
> The “von” means this person is nobility, so the Engish equivalent would be “Manfred of Richthofen”. I believe if you were to look him up in a correct German alphabetical list, he should correctly be under R instead of V. But at my work (in the US), the Outlook Adddress book puts all the “von-” names under V with both upper and lowercase "V"s.
> 
> There’s also names like Ursula von der Leyen. File under L, not V or D.

To be nitpicking on that: Not every “von” in a German name indicates nobility (or, more correctly, former nobility, since Germany abolished its nobility in 1919 and now treats the former titles as just part of a person’s name). There’s a number of families carrying “von” in their name that are not, and have never in the past, been part of the aristocracy; in these cases, the “von” has historically evolved as part of the tendency of turning descriptors of people (what they looked like, where they came from, what they did etc.) into inheritable family names. It’s even more common in Dutch, where a lot of people have a “van” in their names without any aristocratic background at all.

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**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-their-language-or-cultural-standards-for-capitalizing-peoples-names-that-differ-from-english/700960/23 "2014-10-11T14:39:02Z")

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Chinese “first” names will often be two characters, and there really isn’t a standard on treating them as separate words, capitalizing both or as one word and capitalizing only the initial when writing in the Roman alphabet. Japanese have standardized on treating them as one word.

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