How to use the capitalize() function in pandas

Overview

The capitalize() method in pandas capitalizes the first character of a string and lowercases the rest. It can also be applied to a column in the pandas DataFrame.

Syntax

str.capitalize()

Example

The following code will demonstrate how to use the capitalize() function.

import pandas as pd
# Create a DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame({
    "name": ["marIa","pAUl","EVa","Oliver","seBasTian","CamilA"],
    "age":[20,22,32,26,29,30],
    "salary":[2000,2500,4000,3500,4200,3000],
    "gender":["female","male","female","male","male"
    ,"female"]
})
# Convert first character to uppercase and lowercase the rest using capitalize() 
print(df["name"].str.capitalize())

Explanation

  • Line 1: We import the pandas library.
  • Lines 4–10: We create a DataFrame, df, from a dictionary.
  • Line 13: We use the capitalize() function to uppercase the first letter of the name column and lowercase the rest.

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