Scrabble has its first rule change in 62 years as proper nouns are allowed.

A new version of the popular board game Scrabble will be launched this summer which will permit the use of proper nouns such as celebrity and brand names.

Games company and owner of the Scrabble brand Mattel has announced that the rules are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns – place names, people’s names and brand names.

The company is hoping that the change will encourage younger people to play; until now just a few proper nouns had been allowed which were determined by a word list based on the Collins dictionary. There is even a Scrabble checker that players can use here.

In Scrabble, players try to gain the highest points by making words with individual letter tiles on a grid board. Each letter tile has a points value between one and 10, based on the letter’s frequency in Standard English, and various coloured squares on the board can double or triple a player’s points.

Mattel has said there would be no hard and fast rule over whether a proper noun was correct or not – a fact that is bound to cause issue for Scrabble purists.

It is also considering allowing players to spell words backwards and upwards on the board and place words unconnected to other pieces.

A spokeswoman for the company said the use of proper nouns would “add a new dimension” to Scrabble and “introduce an element of popular culture into the game”.

She said: “This is one of a number of twists and challenges included that we believe existing fans will enjoy and will also enable younger fans and families to get involved.”

However, Mattel said it would not be doing away with the old rules altogether. It will continue to sell a board with the original rules alongside the new version which will be launched in July.

Scrabble was invented in 1938 by American-born architect Alfred Butts in New York, who began developing Scrabble after he failed to find work as an architect due to the Depression. He initially called his game “Lexiko” then “Criss Cross Words” but was initially unable to find a manufacturer willing to produce his idea.

However, one of the first owners of an early copy of the game, entrepreneur James Brunot convinced Butts to sell him the rights, renamed it Scrabble (which means “to grope frantically”) and went into manufacture – since 1948, more than 150 million sets have been sold worldwide.