Is Happy Birthday Capitalized?
When you write about wishing someone on their birthday, don’t capitalize the words happy (an adjective) and birthday (a common noun) in the middle of a sentence.
- She called to wish you a happy birthday.
A personal greeting may be capitalized in an informal message or a card.
- Happy Birthday!
- Happy Birthday, Maya! Have a lovely day.
Capitalize only the first word of a personal greeting if you wish to appear less informal.
- Happy birthday, Ms. Dash.
![Graphic titled "Is 'happy birthday' capitalized?" The left panel shows an illustration of a cat offering flowers and gift-wrapped cheese to a mouse. The right panel contains the following text. Don't capitalize when you describe wishing someone. Example: I wished her a happy birthday [adjective + common noun]). Don't capitalize in dialogue. Examples: "Good morning and happy birthday, Remy," she said. They all cried, "Happy birthday!" Style personal greetings as you like. Example: Happy Birthday! (with balloon emojis)](https://editorsmanual.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/happy-birthday-capitalization-media-1024x576.webp)
Mid-sentence greetings
Don’t capitalize common nouns like birthday and anniversary or adjectives like happy and merry when they appear in the middle of a sentence. Do capitalize names of holidays, which are proper nouns, like Christmas, Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving.
- Did you call to wish her a happy birthday?
- The whole team wished her a happy anniversary.
- As he took his leave, he wished them all happy holidays.
- She released a new song to wish her followers a merry Christmas.
- He took the occasion to wish the staff and students a happy Thanksgiving.
- The president wished everyone a happy Fourth of July.
Personal greetings
Feel free to capitalize the words in a personal greeting to make it appear festive and exuberant (for example, in a personal message, a birthday card, or a holiday banner). Such informal messages are not governed by strict rules of style and grammar.
- Happy Birthday!🎈🎈🎈
- Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!
- Happy Birthday to the world’s 💕best sister 💕!
- Merry Christmas to your family from ours!
- Happy Holidays!
- Happy Graduation! You deserve the best from life.
- Happy New Home! Here’s to new beginnings.
If you wish to appear less informal (e.g., in an email to a client), don’t capitalize common nouns and adjectives (like birthday and happy), except of course at the start of a sentence. Remember to capitalize names of holidays.
- Happy birthday, Maya.
- Hello, and happy birthday.
- Happy anniversary.
- Happy holidays, Dr. Dash.
- See you next week, and happy holidays!
- We wish you a merry Christmas.
- Happy Thanksgiving to all our clients in Canada.
- We wish you a very happy Eid.
- Nusquam Corp. wishes you a happy Diwali.
Dialogue
If you are writing dialogue for a story, follow standard capitalization rules: Capitalize only proper nouns (names of holidays) and words at the start of a sentence. Don’t capitalize common nouns and adjectives (like happy and birthday).
- “Happy birthday, Maya.”
“Thanks, Farley, but it’s not my birthday.”
“I got you a present!”
“Oh! Then happy birthday to me.” - “I just called to wish you a happy anniversary,” he said, “and a merry Christmas.”
- “Surprise!” we all yelled. “Happy birthday!”
The birthday song
Capitalize the words happy and birthday in the name of the song traditionally sung on birthdays, since it is a proper noun.
- The whole team sang “Happy Birthday” to me today. Should I tell them it’s not my birthday?
- She released a new recording of “Happy Birthday to You” to mark her daughter’s first birthday.