Strings

INITCAP

Capitalises the first letter of every word and makes the rest lowercase.

Syntax

INITCAP(<text>)

Handy for tidying up names and titles typed any old way: emma WILSON becomes Emma Wilson. A word is anything between non-letter characters: spaces, hyphens, apostrophes.

Data for the examples

employees

name	department	salary	bonus	phone
Emma	backend	1200	300	+44 7700 900123
Liam	backend	1000	NULL	NULL
Olivia	frontend	1350	150	+44 7700 900456
Noah	frontend	950	NULL	+44 7700 900789
Sophia	design	1200	200	NULL

These tables already exist in the sandbox — the examples below use them. Want to try this in your own database? Copy the SQL.

Tidying up a name

SELECT INITCAP('emma WILSON') AS full_name;

full_name
Emma Wilson

Department names capitalised

SELECT DISTINCT INITCAP(department) AS department

FROM employees

ORDER BY department;

department
Backend
Design
Frontend

Watch out

It knows nothing about language rules: INITCAP('o''brien mcdonald') gives O'Brien Mcdonald, and INITCAP('iPhone') gives Iphone.

A hyphen separates words too: INITCAP('e-mail') gives E-Mail.

Related functions

LOWER TRIM CONCAT