Q. When a proper name begins a sentence, is it always capitalized, even when it’s a name commonly seen as lowercase (e. e. cummings, for example)? I’m also unclear about names with particles. CMOS 8.7 says de (or d’) is always lowercased and is often dropped when the surname is used alone. How would I know that it’s dropped from Tocqueville but not from de Gaulle if neither of these names were in Merriam-Webster?
A. E. E. Cummings can be safely capitalized—not necessarily because he’s no longer around to object, but because it wasn’t his personal preference to lowercase his name (see this entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica). For those who do have a strong preference—bell hooks is a well-known example—you will want to respect it. This makes life difficult, however, for those of us who cannot bear to begin a sentence with a lowercase letter. CMOS forbids so doing (except for names like eBay)—we advise you to rewrite. Some publications simply ignore the preference (see Elise Harris, “That 4-Letter Word,” review of All about Love, by bell hooks, New York Times, January 30, 2000). Note that I’ve in turn ignored the capitalization in the Times’s review.
As for the particle de/d’, dropping it or not when referring to the surname only is a matter of tradition. If you are unable from any source to determine what that tradition might be, err on the side of retaining the particle.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. What is the CMOS standard for alphabetizing names that are hyphenated and not hyphenated? This would apply mainly to persons who, instead of hyphenating their name upon being married, make their pre-marriage last name their middle name. For example, Pat Doe Smith and Pat Doe-Smith. Should both examples of this name be alphabetized under the Ds, the Ss, or would the first example be alphabetized under the Ss and the second example be alphabetized under the Ds?
A. Compound family names, with or without hyphens, are usually alphabetized according to the first element.
Lloyd George, David
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig
Sackville-West, Victoria
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre
But be sure to check against a biographical dictionary or other reliable resource. See CMOS 8.6, 8.11, and 16.72 for more examples.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. When referring to Orville and Wilbur Wright as a unit, should the word “brothers” be capitalized—Wright brothers vs. Wright Brothers?
A. According to CMOS 8.36, “Kinship names are lowercased unless they immediately precede a personal name or are used alone, in place of a personal name.” One of the examples at 8.36 is “the Brontë sisters,” who, though none of them lived to see the age of modern aviation, provide a perfect analogy in terms of capitalization: write “the Wright brothers.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]