What are Proper Nouns

A noun is a part of speech that identifies a person, place, thing or an idea. Nouns can be divided into two main groups: common nouns and proper nouns. A common noun is a word that is used to identify a class of people, places, things or ideas. Proper noun, on the other hand, refers to the specific identity of a word. In this article, we are going to discuss the nature of proper nouns, their characteristics, and usage.

A proper noun can be defined as a noun that is primarily applied to a unique entity. Proper nouns are the names of particular people, places, and objects. They can refer to names of people, countries, cities, organizations, etc. For example,

Siberia, Amazon, Jupiter, McDonald’s, India, February, Rusty, Ryan Adams, Peugeot, Thompson, Garfield, Frodo, Agatha Christie, Tintin, Levi’s

You’ll note that all the above words start with a capital letter. In fact, this is a common feature of proper nouns. Proper nouns always begin with capital letters, no matter where they occur in a sentence.

Note that proper nouns can also consist of more than one word. For example,

Naomi Campbell, United Kingdom, University of New South Wales, Royal Air Force

Proper nouns are sometimes used in contrast with common nouns. Common nouns are words used to name general items rather than specific items. It is important to note that every proper noun has an equivalent common noun. The table below will help you to understand this concept.

Common Noun	Proper Noun
Car	Lamborghini, Volvo, Porsche
Country	Russia, France, Belgium
cookies	Oreo, Belvita, Hydrox
actors	Brad Pitt, Clark Gable
city	Bordeaux, Liverpool, Moscow
ships	Titanic, USS Enterprise, Argo

He loves to eat Oreos.

Once you know what proper nouns are, it is not difficult to use them. All you have to do is simply place them in your sentence, as you would do with common nouns.