Q. Should the names of childhood games be capitalized in prose? For example, kick the can, ghost in the graveyard, and so on. These games are not listed in Merriam-Webster, so my initial thought is to leave them lowercase, but I’d love to hear what you think!
A. Capitalization is usually reserved for brand names, so your initial thought to use lowercase for the names of generic children’s games like kick the can and ghost in the graveyard (or tag or follow the leader or tic-tac-toe, etc.) aligns with what we’d recommend (see CMOS 8.192).