3.2.178 ucfirst

ucfirst 

EXPR

This function returns a version of EXPR (or $_ if EXPR is omitted) with the first character uppercased, that is, capitalized. This is the internal function implementing the \u escape in double-quoted strings. POSIX setlocale (3) settings are respected.

To force initial caps, and everything else lowercase, use:

ucfirst lc $word

which is equivalent to "\u\L$word" .