Is “My” Capitalized in a Title?

June 2, 2024

The word “my” might be just two letters long, but is “my” capitalized in a title? The answer is yes. The word “my” is capitalized in the title. In this article, we’ll break down the rules of major style guides and which ones say that “my” should be capitalized.

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Title Capitalization Rules per Style Guide

As mentioned earlier, title capitalization can get tricky, especially with short words like “my.” While common style guides agree on capitalizing major words, they can differ on how to handle smaller ones. Here’s a closer look at each one.

Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)

For the Chicago Manual of Style, the word “my” is capitalized along with verbs, nouns, and adjectives. For example, “I Tried to Prank My Friend With Zucchini Seeds” is correct, while “Why I Couldn’t Find my Frog” isn’t.

American Medical Association (AMA Style)

The American Medical Association (AMA) style guide also states that the word “my” should be capitalized if it’s the first word of a title or a subtitle. You should also capitalize “my” if it’s the last word of a title.

In AMA, parts of speech that you shouldn’t capitalize are:

Articles
Prepositions (three letters or fewer)
Coordinating conjunctions
“To” infinitives.

Associated Press (AP Style)

For the Associated Press stylebook, the style guide dictates to capitalize pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. It doesn’t matter whether the writer writes the title as “My Day with Frogs” or “My Daughter Said My Frog is Ugly,” the word “my” is always capitalized in this style guide.

Modern Language Association (MLA Style)

In the Modern Language Association, the word “my” is capitalized in titles, too! Like the Chicago style, MLA follows the title case, where all the major words, such as adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, nouns, and verbs, are capitalized.

An article or blog post titled ‘My Sister Accidentally Stepped on My Frog’ is the correct capitalization.

American Psychological Association (APA Style)

The American Psychological Association uses two types of capitalization: title case and sentence case. With title case, parts of speech are divided into two: major words and minor words.

You should not capitalize minor words (articles, short conjunctions, and short prepositions). Since the word “my” is not an article, a conjunction, or a preposition, it is a major word; therefore, you should capitalize it.

Adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and words with four or more letters are other major words that receive capitalization in APA Style.

New York Times Manual of Style and Usage

With NY Style, you should always capitalize nouns, pronouns, and verbs. If it’s a different part of speech, but the word has four or more letters, you should also capitalize it.

In the case of the word “my,” the NY Style also suggests capitalizing it, even if it is in the middle of a title. Don’t forget that any word that appears after a colon should be capitalized.

Bluebook

When it comes to title capitalization, following the Bluebook style guide, you should capitalize every word unless it’s a preposition of fewer than four words, an article, or a conjunction.

Wikipedia Manual of Style

For the Wikipedia Manual of Style, you shouldn’t capitalize the following parts of speech:

Articles
Short coordinating conjunctions
Prepositions that are four letters or fewer (with exceptions)
“To” infinitives

Since the word “my” doesn’t fall in any of the parts of speech above, you should capitalize the word “my.”

When You Should Capitalize “My”

Whether you are following APA, AMA, AP, MLA, or Wikipedia Manual of Style, you should always capitalize the word “my.” You should capitalize it if it appears as the first word of a title or the last word of a title. If it appears in the second part of a title (subtitle), you should also capitalize it.

Tip: Even if “my” is not the first word of the title (ex. it is the second word), you should always put it in uppercase.

When Shouldn’t You Capitalize “My”

So, when shouldn’t you capitalize the word “my?” Well, there aren’t any instances! The word “my” is always capitalized in a title.

Final Thoughts

In summary, the answer to the question, “Is my capitalized in a title?” is yes. All major style guides agree that “my” deserves capitalization because, depending on the context, it can function as a pronoun, an interjection, a determiner, and even an adjective.

If you always forget what words you should capitalize in a title, you can always use our title capitalization tool for fast and accurate capitalization, regardless of what style guide you are following.