Names and titles

Be inclusive and respectful when you name someone.

Use the style of name that the person uses for themselves, where known. For example, use Tom Jones if that’s what they go by, not Thomas Jones.

Avoid titles and honorifics as part of a name. Not everyone uses a title, and it’s easy to misgender someone if you make assumptions.

If absolutely necessary (for example, to establish credentials) note that anyone who has been awarded a doctorate is entitled to use the prefix Dr. Be led by the style they use themselves.

Use a person's full name on first use; in subsequent references, use the person's last name only.

Capitalize a job title if it immediately precedes a name (Chief Executive Officer Frank Calderoni).

Do not capitalize a job title that follows a name or is a generic reference (Frank Calderoni, chief executive officer of Anaplan).

Punctuation note: If the title is first, no comma; if second, use a comma.

Do not capitalize a title when it appears in the flow of a sentence, unassociated with a name (As Anaplan's head of supply chain solutions, I talk with logistics managers every day.)

Capitalize department names when you refer to the name of a department, but use lower case if you are talking about the field of work and not the actual department:

• Pat works in Quality Assurance. (Quality Assurance is the name of the department.)
• Pat works in quality assurance. (Quality assurance is Pat's field of work, but not the name of her department.)

Use initial caps for specific reports (Performance History report).

Use lower case for general kinds of reports (performance reports).

See also: Capitalization