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How Jane Austen Uses Names
20 responses to “How Jane Austen Uses Names”
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This is the kind of post one finds himself caught up in writing, that takes longer than expected to complete, but is so satisfying when it is done. I enjoyed reading it.
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Thank you!
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Great, Bethany!!! I was just wondering, has anyone else here notice how Austen favoured names with combined words within them? I’m thinking Dashwood (dash and wood), Woodhouse or Churchill?
I have, but prob. just a silly thought…
XXAlice-
I wonder if that is a Jane Austen thing or a British thing.
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It was not unknown (particularly in the Middle Ages, but sometimes later too) for two siblings in the same family to share a name. There was not the vast range on names in use now, especially among conservative or ‘respectable’ families. Children, if not named after a parent or grandparent, were often named after the senior godparent.
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There was also a practice of reusing names if a child died very young, which I’m told can make church records really hard to read! So if you really wanted to pass on a family name you would just try again.
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Looking at my family tree, there are definitely a lot of Elizabeths, Richards, Johns and Thomasas. Plus some interesting ones like: Experience, Thankful, and Mehitable.
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Since you have a Mehitable, is there also an Archy?
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Not that I can find. It is Mehitable Walker. She married my 8th or 9th great-grandfather, I think.
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I’ve never heard of Experience as a name!
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One can only imagine what her mother mother was thinking to name her that.
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Yeah that is a different name for sure!
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I read P&P before I read Persuasion. The beginning of Persuasion starts describing Sir Walter, and then goes on to describe Elizabeth. So with EB being the heroine of P&P, I expected that EE was the heroine of P. I was very surprised when it turned out to be Anne.
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Lol, that’s so interesting! Austen does start Persuasion with some minor characters so I think it would be easy to think that EE was the star!
I think it is near to see how much she used certain names! It seems she favored Elizabeth and Mary. My Mom is an Eleanor but spelled differently than Elinor Dashwood!lol
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Elizabeth and Mary were also super popular names! I remember reading a record of female names and a good 60% were Anne, Mary, or Elizabeth.
Fabulous post! Thank you for all the work you did to compile these lists.
On my last reread of “Lady Susan” in particular I found it hilarious to note how little name variation there was across the story, especially since so many characters shared both last and first names. I was reading aloud to my husband (his first ever experience with it), and had to double check every so often that he still had the names straight.
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Lol, yes Lady Susan is a tricky one! I made myself a little character sheet the first time I read it.
[…] Delleman. 2024. ‘How Jane Austen Uses Names.’ https://alwaysausten.com/2024/04/10/how-jane-austen-uses-names/ accessed […]
[…] Austen subtly differentiates, and isolates, Anne from her sisters. Who was Anne named for then? AlwaysAusten‘s blogger suggests that Anne may have bee named after her godmother Lady Russell, whose first […]
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