Proper Noun - Proper Nouns and Proper Names

Proper Nouns and 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).

Though the term common name is not much used in this context, it would mean a noun (or a noun phrase) that is not a proper name (Swiss cheese, and the common noun bluebird, are both common names in this sense). Sometimes proper names are called simply names; but that term is often used more broadly (as in "chair is the name for something we sit on").

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:

• A rose grows on the third floor of the main building.
  
  
• Rose lives on Floor 3 of the Main Building.
  
  
• The 16th robotic probe to land on the planet was assigned to study the north pole, and the 17th probe the south pole.
  
  
• When Probe 17 overflew the South Pole, it passed directly over the place where Captain Scott's expedition ended.
  
  
• Sanjay lives on the beach road.
  
  
• Sanjay lives on Beach Road.
  
  
• My university has a school of medicine.
  
  
• 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 (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 Mary Price. If the is inherent, however, as in The Hague, it cannot be dropped. Similarly, proper names based on noun phrases differ grammatically from common noun phrases. They are fixed expressions, and cannot 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.