Proper Nouns without THE

We do not use "the" with names of people. For example:

first names	Bill (not *the Bill)
first names	Hilary
surnames	Clinton
surnames	Gates
full names	Hilary Gates

We do not normally use "the" with names of companies. For example:

Renault, Ford, Sony, EnglishClub.com
General Motors, Air France, British Airways
Warner Brothers, Brown & Son Ltd

If the full (registered) name of a company starts with "The", then we use "The" if we use the full name, for example:

The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd

We do not normally use "the" for shops, banks, hotels etc named after a founder or other person (with -'s or -s). For example:

shops	Harrods, Marks & Spencer, Maceys
banks	Barclays Bank
hotels, restaurants	Steve's Hotel, Joe's Cafe, McDonalds
churches, cathedrals	St John's Church, St Peter's Cathedral

We do not normally use "the" with names of places. For example:

towns	Washington (not *the Washington), Paris, Tokyo
states, regions	Texas, Kent, Eastern Europe
countries	England, Italy, Brazil
continents	Asia, Europe, North America
islands	Corsica
mountains	Everest

Exception! If a country name includes "States","Kingdom", "Republic" etc, we use "the":

states	the United States, the US, the United States of America, the USA
kingdom	the United Kingdom, the UK
republic	the French Republic

We do not use "the" with "President/Doctor/Mr etc + Name":

the president, the king	President Bush (not *the President Bush)
the captain, the detective	Captain Kirk, Detective Colombo
the doctor, the professor	Doctor Well, Dr Well, Professor Dolittle
my uncle, your aunt	Uncle Jack, Aunt Jill
	Mr Gates (not *the Mr Gates), Mrs Clinton, Miss Black

Look at these example sentences:

I wanted to speak to the doctor.
I wanted to speak to Doctor Brown.
Who was the president before President Kennedy?

We do not use "the" with "Lake/Mount + Name":

the lake	Lake Victoria
the mount	Mount Everest

Look at this example sentence:

We live beside Lake Victoria. We have a fantastic view across the lake.

We do not normally use "the" for roads, streets, squares, parks etc:

streets etc	Oxford Street, Trenholme Road, Fifth Avenue
squares etc	Trafalgar Square, Oundle Place, Piccadilly Circus
parks etc	Central Park, Kew Gardens

Many big, important buildings have names made of two words (for example, Kennedy Airport). If the first word is the name of a person or place, we do not normally use "the":

people	Kennedy Airport, Alexander Palace, St Paul's Cathedral
places	Heathrow Airport, Waterloo Station, Edinburgh Castle

Proper Nouns with THE »