Capitalization of Fantasy Race Names

by Mark William Chase

I have struggled for quite some time with the conundrum of capitalization as it concerns the names of fantasy races. While for me this is primarily of concern to the various races particular to the world of Mythania, I am sure that a full understanding of the issue can help many other fantasy writers as well.

For the longest time I have capitalized my non-human race names such as Eldrien, Dworgh, Scaithi, Ogre, Goblin, and so forth. After all, the name of virtually every human race is capitalized, such as African-America, Latino, Caucasian, and so forth. Thus, capitalizing fantasy race names seemed fairly acceptable until I realized that it would force me to capitalize "human" as well. This resulted in such odd looking sentences as: "it was clear to the Eldrien that the Human would not help." Obviously, the word "human" should not be capitalized here, or anywhere else for that matter.

Almost universally, the names of species are lower cased, such as dog, cat, wolf, elephant, with the exception of scientific Latin names (Canis lupus, Homo sapien, etc.). Likewise, the common term for our own species, "human", is also never seen capitalized. The word "human" is a common noun, and if "human" is a common noun, shouldn't "eldrien", "dworgh", and so forth, also be common nouns?

In science fiction we are often met with capitalization on the names of virtually every alien races. For example, let us make up the name Xorthergon for the multi-tentacled, six-eyed inhabitance of the planet Xortherga. Why then would Xorthergon be capitalize while human would not be capitalized? Because Xortherga is then name of a planet, and Xorthergons are the people from the planet Xortherga. A human from Earth (or Terra) might be called an Earthling, or more often in modern sci-fi, a Terran, but the word "human" would not be capitalized (unless of course the planet Earth changed its name to "Hum").

But back to the subject of fantasy. Tolkien, as we know, capitalized Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, and Men, but he did this primarily in reference to the collective race of Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, or Men. When he spoke of a small party of dwarves or a group of hobbits in the Shire, he did not capitalize their racial name. In the book Ents, Elves, and Eriador, by Matthew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans, we are told just after the introduction that "The decision of whether to capitalize the names of races in Middle-earth was not an easy one. Even Tolkien was not consistent. We made an effort to capitalize these words only when used collectively or in reference to a race as a race and to lowercase them when speaking of individuals of a race."

However, I feel that consistency is most important of all. Either you always capitalize a particular race name, or you do not. Thus, for Mythania, I must now determine if the names of particular races should be capitalized or not. It is clear to me that humans, ogres, giants, and goblins should not be capitalized, as these are not distinct cultures, nationalities, or language groups. A human from Tilsha would be a Tilshan; an ogre from Kaldea would be a Kaldean ogre. But what of Eldrien, Dworghs, and Scaithi?

From the research I have conducted, I believe names of fantasy races may either be capitalized if they are treated as proper nouns, or lower cased if they are treated as common nouns. Each race that possesses a distinct culture, language, and heritage are referred to in proper form and are thus capitalized. These include Eldrien, Dworghs, Scaithi, and Ogrim. However, humans, goblins, giants, and ogres (in common usage) are lower cased, as these races do not have a particular unifying culture. In addition, many races have common names in addition to their proper names: Eldrien may be called "elds", Scaithi may be called "darklings", Ogrim are most often called "ogres", and so forth. Also, Humankind may be capitalized when formally referring to humanity as a race, often in relation to the race of Eldrien or Dworghs.

Hopefully, this short discourse on capitalization of fantasy race names will be of use to someone; and if not, at least it was of use to me. If anyone has any other opinions or anything to add, please feel free to contact me.