Company names

This section provides style guidelines for company names that align with the ASU brand in addition to the latest AP style updates.

Consult a company’s website for the official representation of its name. Click on the News or About tabs to find a press release from the company containing its official name.

• Generally, follow an organization’s convention for capitalization, punctuation and abbreviation of the organization’s suffix — Company, Corporation, Incorporated, Limited. Do not use a comma before the suffix, even if one is included in the formal name.
  • ✅ Do: Intel Corp.
  • ✅ Do: UnitedHealth Group Inc.
  • ✅ Do: Translational Genomics Research Institute on first reference, TGen thereafter.
• Only use an ampersand if it is part of a company’s official name, such as: 
  • ✅ Do: AT&T
  • ✅ Do: U.S. News & World Report
• Do not capitalize an article such as “the” unless it is part of the company’s official name.
  • ✅ Do: The Kroger Co.
  • ✅ Do: The Arizona Republic
  • ✅ Do: The New York Times
• Do not use all-uppercase unless the letters are individually pronounced.
  • ✅ Do: BMW
  • ✅ Do: USA Today, 🚫 Don't: USA TODAY 
  • ✅ Do: Ikea, 🚫 Don't: Not IKEA
• Always capitalize the first letter if it begins a sentence.
  • EBay is an online auction site, but: The item is listed on eBay.
  • EdX partners with ASU, but: ASU partners with edX.
    
    Exception: adidas is always lowercase, even at the beginning of a sentence.
• Do not use symbols such as exclamation points, plus signs or asterisks that form contrived spellings that might distract or confuse a reader, even if one is included in the formal name or logo: 
  • ✅ Do: Yahoo, 🚫 Don't: Yahoo!