Q. I am making certificates of awards where the recipient’s name is in all caps. One recipient spells her name desJardins. On an all-capitalized document should the first letter of the last name still be a lowercase d?
A. There’s no rule; people do what looks best. Some names look fine with a single letter lowercased (McCOUGHLIN), but more than that risks looking like a mistake: desJARDINS. Another option is to put the particle in small caps: DESJARDINS. Before you make your decision about how to treat these rogue letters, consider all the names in the list.