At the Christian Law Institute Fellowship and Assembly, we've been repeatedly requested to publish our accumulated research concerning the use of all or full capitalized letters for proper names; i.e., JOHN JAMES SMITH as commonly substituted for John James Smith in all court documents, Driver's Licenses, bank accounts, Birth Certificates, etc.

Is this some special English grammar rule or style? Is it a contemporary American style of English? Is the use of this form of capitalization recognized by educational authorities? Is this an official judicial or U.S. government rule and/or style of grammar? Why do lawyers, court clerks, prosecutors, judges, insurance companies, banks, and credit card companies always use all capital letters when writing a proper name?

What English grammar experts say?

One of the foremost authorities on American English grammar, style, composition, and rules is The Chicago Manual of Style. Their latest 15th Edition, published by the University of Chicago Press, is internationally known and respected as a major contribution to maintaining and improving the standards of written or printed text. We could find no reference in their manual concerning the use of all capitalized letters with a proper name or any other usage. We wrote to the editors and asked this question:

"Is it acceptable, or is there any rule of English grammar, to allow a proper name to be written in all capital letters? For example, if my name was John Robert Jones, can it be written as JOHN ROBERT JONES? Is there any rule covering this?"

We received the following reply from the Chicago Editorial Staff:

"Writing names in all caps is not conventional; it is not Chicago style to put anything in all caps. For instance, even if 'GONE WITH THE WIND' appears on the title page all in caps, we would properly render it 'Gone with the Wind' in a bibliography. The only reason we can think of to do so is if you are quoting some material where it is important to the narrative to preserve the casing of the letters.

We're not sure in what context you would like your proper name to appear in all caps, but it is likely to be seen as a bit odd."

Yes, it does appear "a bit odd" for governments, their judicial courts, and other legal entities incorporated within their legal jurisdiction to use this method of capitalizing every letter in a proper name.

We then contacted Mary Newton Bruder, Ph.D., also known as The Grammar Lady, who established the Grammar Hotline in the late 1980's for the Coalition of Adult Literacy. We asked her the following:

"Why do federal and state government agencies and departments, judicial and administrative courts, insurance companies, etc., spell a person's proper name in all capital letters? For example, if my name is John Joseph Smith, is it proper at any time to write it as JOHN JOSEPH SMITH?"

Dr. Bruder's reply was short and to the point:

"It must be some kind of internal style. There is no grammar rule about it."

It seemed that these particular grammatical experts had no idea why proper names were written in all caps, so we began to assemble an extensive collection of reference books authored by various publishers, governments, and legal authorities in order to find the answer.

Proceed to page 2 of It's all in the capitalized NAME

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