Dear Name: Comma or Colon?
Punctuation after “Dear Name” depends on correspondence style. Government of Canada guidance uses a colon for standard North American business letters and a comma for more personal or social business correspondence.
Use a colon for a formal North American business-letter salutation; use a comma for more personal correspondence or when your email/house style specifies it.
Key details
Important caveats
Scope Boundary
The choice is a correspondence-style convention, not a universal sentence-grammar rule. Match the formality and the style system governing the message.
Further guidance
Practical Application
Match the salutation punctuation to the document type and house style. In formal North American business letters, a colon after the name is conventional; a comma is common in personal correspondence and many email styles.
Reader Check
Is this a formal business letter with a specified style, or a more personal/email context where a comma is expected?
Recommendation
Use a colon after “Dear Name” in a formal North American business letter. Use a comma when the message is more personal or when the applicable email/house style calls for it.
Worked Example
Formal letter: “Dear Ms. Rivera:” More personal/email style: “Dear Maya,”. Keep one convention consistently within the document.
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
- Business letters: Salutation (opens in a new tab)Government of Canada Language Portal · Government guidance on colon versus comma punctuation after salutations in business and more personal correspondence.