Q. There seems to be an increasing number of people who prefer their names in lowercase, and I was wondering when other capitalization rules trump this preference. It seems like the first letter of a sentence should be capitalized even if it happens to be a lowercased name (e.g., “Damali ayo is . . .” or “Ayo is . . .”), but could that look clumsy or incorrect, requiring all such sentences to be rephrased?
A. A capital letter does look best at the beginning of a sentence. An exception may be made for words that have a midcap like eBay or iPhone.