How Jane Austen Uses Names

And which names are never given

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and Colonel Fitzwilliam are never named in the entirety of Pride & Prejudice. Fan fiction and adaptations have given them first names, but Austen never revealed names if a person would be addressed by a title instead. Mrs. Bennet is addressed as “mamma,” “sister,” and “dear,” but never by her first name. Fanny was an invention of the 1995 BBC adaptation.

After examining all the named characters in all of Austen’s novels, even Lady Susan, we can discern that the most likely candidate for Mrs. Bennet’s first name is… Jane. Most first daughters are named after their mother, here are some examples from Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion:

Maria Ward (Lady Bertram) – Maria Bertram

Frances Ward (Mrs. Price) – Fanny (nickname for Frances) Price

Isabella Woodhouse (Mrs. Knightley) – Isabella Knightley

Jane Bates (Mrs. Fairfax) – Jane Fairfax

Elizabeth Stevenson (Lady Elliot) – Elizabeth Elliot

Sons are usually named in the same manner, as examples from Persuasion, Sense & Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Lady Susan show:

Charles Musgrove – Charles Musgrove – Charles Musgrove (three generations!)

Sir John Middleton – John Middleton

Sir Thomas Bertram – Tom Bertram

Sir Reginald de Courcy – Mr. Reginald de Courcy

(Little Walter -named for his grandfather- being removed from Anne’s back as she nurses Charles the III)

There are some notable exceptions of course. Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy was given his mother’s family name as a first name, a practice that was not uncommon and can be found in Elizabeth Gaskell’s works as well. There are also several uses of a grandfather’s name:

Henry Dashwood – John Dashwood – Harry Dashwood (nickname for Henry)

Henry Woodhouse (maternal grandfather) – John Knightley – Henry Knightley

Mr. Woodhouse even talks about this naming choice in Emma:

“Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second, is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I thought very pretty of her.“

Anne de Bourgh is likely named after her aunt, Lady Anne Darcy. This choice of name, as well as the grandfather namings, may be a political move to try and ensure an inheritance or encourage a marriage.

We do not know the name of Mr. Darcy Sr., but it seems likely that his daughter, born eleven years after their son, was named after him but in the female form: George – Georgiana. George Wickham may also be named in honour of his godfather. If naming a child after their godparent was common, it may give us a clue to two other unnamed characters, Lady Russell from Persuasion and Mrs. Norris from Mansfield Park, who would be Anne and Elizabeth respectively.

Interestingly, Austen doesn’t tend to use unique names for her heroines. These are all the unique names that are used for females in her works:

Alice, Annamaria, Bridgot, Clara, Emily, Flora, Frederica, Georgiana, Hannah, Janet, Jemima, Julia, Lydia, Marianne, Martha, Patty, Rebecca, and Selina

Most of these unique named characters are servants, Only Marianne may be considered a heroine, though Elinor Dashwood, the undisputed heroine of Sense & Sensibility, does have a unique spelling to her name, she shares it with Eleanor Tilney from Northanger Abbey.

Here are the names that appear more than once and which novel they appear in:

Male names are even more frequently used, though more heroes have unique names:

Archibald, Arthur, Basil, Christopher, Edmund, Fitzwilliam, Humphery, Lewis, Philip, and Stephan

Both Edmund Bertram (Mansfield Park) and Fitzwilliam Darcy have unique names. There is also one unnamed hero, or at least male main character: Colonel Brandon.

Men’s names are more frequently repeated than female names:

There is a John in every novel except Lady Susan! Sense & Sensibility even has 3! (Willoughby, Middleton, and Dashwood) Persuasion has five men named “Charles”.

Jane Austen uses 201 unique last names throughout her novels, with only 20 that ever repeat. The most common of these reused names is… Smith of course, which appears 6 times across the novels. All of the heroes and heroines have unique last names, except for Anne Elliot. Robert Ferras brags about visiting a Lady Elliot in Sense & Sensibility.

If you’d like to have some fun playing with names, I have complied excel spreadsheets and PDFs for every novel of each named character that are free to download, you can find them here:

Resources: Charater Lists

I want to thank The Republic of Pemberley website and the online copies of each novel through the Gutenberg Project for making this resource possible.

What you will not find is a first name for those unnamed characters, and I don’t tend to name them either when I write fan fiction. Jane Austen didn’t need a name for Mrs. Bennet and neither do I! After all, who is going to use it? We see even close relations using honourfics to address each other in most of Austen’s novels.

Do you find it odd that Austen used the same name for Elizabeth Bennet and Elizabeth Elliot? Or does it amuse you? Let me know in the comments!

If you want to read more:

Jane Austen’s Brave Refusal to Reform the Rake

Canon vs. Fanon: Mary Bennet

What do we Really Know about Colonel Fitzwilliam?

The Problem with the Compromise Trope

Darcy Smiles a Lot Actually (even before Pemberley)

Did Mr. Darcy want his Friend Bingley to Marry His Sister?