Names in Jane Austen

 The names in Jane Austen's novels may appear bland and commonplace, but are always carefully chosen and often contain coded meanings. 

  In Pride and Prejudice, Austen gave the heroine a name, Bennet, that is a close twin of her own.  Austen or Austin is a contraction of "Augustine". Austin-friars in the City of London is a street where before the Reformation there was a monastery of the order of St Augustine, one of many in England. The name Bennet is a contraction of "Benedict" another saint who founded a monastic order. Austen surely chose the name because the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, is a self-portrait. The Bennet family resemble the Austens in one crucial respect - they cannot pass on the family home to the next generation. Their predicament is due to an entail whereas that of the Austens arose out of the fact that her father was a clergyman whose rectory would pass to the next incumbent.

    One of the privileges of the English aristocracy is to have names that are hard to pronounce (or, you could say, misleadingly spelt), Cholmondeley and Featherstonehaugh being two examples. This is somewhat the case with the name "Lady Catherine de Bourgh" pronounced "de Burr". The fact that her title precedes her first name, not the surname, indicates that she is the daughter of an Earl, Marquis or Duke. We learn that her husband was Sir Lewis de Bourgh, presumably a baronet, but she is not called Lady de Bourgh. Women of her rank continued to use the title attached to their Christian name which reminds everyone of their higher birth. In Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas Bertram's wife, who was born Miss Maria Ward, is known simply as Lady Bertram. If they met, Lady Catherine would have precedence and would go through the door first.

   The usual English spelling of this name is in fact de Burgh (without the O but pronounced the same). In the 14th century a family named de Burgh were Earls of Ulster and Connaught. In the 15th century, Thomas de Burgh was made a Baron in England, and had numerous descendants.

Thomas Lawrence, portrait of David Lyon 

    The names Darcy and Bingley are subtly differentiated. Darcy is an ancient Norman name, like de Bourgh/Burgh, suggesting descent from landed gentry dating back to the Norman Conquest. Bingley, on the other hand, is just a town in the North of England, famous for the Bradford and Bingley canal. This opened in 1774 and was built to transport coal and manufactured goods, connecting Bradford with Leeds and the port of Liverpool. So the name Bingley is associated with northern manufacturing and new industry. In fact, the town of Bingley is famous for its Five Rise Locks, a series of steps which enable the canal to go uphill. What a perfect metaphor for upward social mobility! In short, the names Darcy and Bingley epitomize what Americans call Old Money and New Money. Darcy comes from a family that has been wealthy for centuries, while the Bingleys are nouveaux riches.

   The Bingley sisters think they are superior to the Bennets, but while Bingley is far from being an aristocratic name, Bennet was the family name of the Earls of Tankerville. The 3rd Earl of Tankerville had a daughter named Lady Camilla Elizabeth Bennet, who married a foreign diplomat, Count Donhoff, and became well known, if not notorious, in London society.

   Mr Collins, the vicar who will one day inherit Longbourn, has the name of the most widely-used 18th-century reference book on the peerage. The Peerage of England, Containing a Genealogical and Historical Account of All the Peers of that Kingdom, Now Existing, Either by Tenure, Summons, Or Creation, Their Descents and Collateral Lines, Their Births, Marriages and Issues, by Arthur Collins, was frequently reprinted. Editions appeared in 1741, 1756, 1768, 1779, and 1784, in many volumes. It was the forerunner of Debrett. So the name suggests respect for the nobility and hence Mr Collins' somewhat comical and exaggerated esteem for his titled patron. In short, he is a snob.

  

  The name "Wickham" hints to us that this handsome and charming young fellow with his tale of victimhood will turn out to be a wicked rogue. Even worse, we find that his Christian name is George, that of the libertine Prince of Wales for whom Jane Austen had no liking at all - (she even turned down his invitation to write a history of the House of Hanover). It is at Brighton that Wickham persuades Lydia to elope with him, the place where Prince George had built himself an opulent pleasure palace, the Brighton Pavilion, and openly lived with his various mistresses. Brighton was associated with his thoroughly bad example, and the name warns us that no good will come to Lydia by going there.

   The name Lucas, that of Elizabeth's best friend, suggests "lucre" so once again we are talking about money acquired through trade. Charlotte's father Sir William has been knighted but that does not place him in the same bracket as Darcy by a very long way. His attempts to flatter Darcy by asking him if he often "dances at St. James's" i.e. the royal court held annually in London, are met with a brush-off. 

     

   In the case of Northanger Abbey, Austen changed the names when she re-wrote this early work. She changed the heroine's name from Susan to Catherine, and that of the hero to Tilney. These names, as Geraldine Roberts pointed out in her book The Angel and the Cad, are taken from the most famous English heiress of the Regency period, Catherine Tylney-Long, whose marriage to a callous fortune-hunter, William Wellesley-Pole, turned out so tragically. Austen did not just choose them because the name was topical, but to hint that fortune-hunting is the hidden theme of the book. Catherine Morland is only invited to Northanger Abbey because a mistaken rumour at Bath reports that she is an heiress. Isabella Thorpe drops her fiancé in order to pursue the far richer Frederick Tilney, elder brother of the hero, Henry. Villainy and wickedness exist but they are banal, not melodramatic; for Georgian society everything is about pounds, shillings and pence.

    The name Bertram in Mansfield Park, is, like Darcy, of Norman-French origin, originally spelt Bertrand. And the name "Mansfield" was chosen as an allusion to Lord Mansfield, the judge who made a crucial decision about the legality of slavery under English law. In this household, Fanny Price is regarded as little more than a slave, running errands for Lady Bertram whenever required.  She is even expected to marry at the behest of her aunt and uncle, who have virtually bought her by bringing her into their family. Her name, Price, (taken from a poem by Cowper) could also be apt because of this underlying theme. When Henry Crawford proposes, everybody assumes that Fanny is purchaseable. 

    The name Norris, that of Fanny's unpleasant aunt, is very undistinguished, but it is carefully chosen. It means a nurse, a word that has its root in "nourish" as nurses were those who breast-fed babies. It was until the time of Shakespeare pronounced as "norris". It is closely related to "nurture", and this draws attention to a line of thought about nature and nurture in the story.

    We are told that Mrs Norris was "obliged" to marry a clergyman whose main motive seems to have been to obtain the patronage of Sir Thomas Bertram. This marriage of convenience produces no children, so Mrs Norris attaches herself detetminedly to the two young Bertram sisters. Always eager to ingratiate herself with her rich sister's family, she flatters and pampers the two girls, feeding their vanity and encouraging them to think that an ambitious marriage is the highest aim of their existence. The result is that Maria and Julia grow up shallow and spoilt without strong moral principles. Fanny, whom Mrs Norris treats with severity, to the point of deliberately humiliating her, develops far more strength of character. Her nurture has been tough but beneficial.

   As for Mr Rushworth, Maria's foolish fiancé, and - briefly - husband, his name is meant to echo the proverbial expression "not worth a rush" or "not worth a straw". He may have twelve thousand a year but he himself is of no intelligence, and no talent.

   The name Crawford is an aristocratic Scottish one. The Crawford family were Earls of Crawford and of Lindsay. When the male line died out in 1808, the titles went to a distant cousin but the last Earl's property went to his sister, Lady Mary Lindsay Crawford. Her inheritance was disputed, leading to a protracted lawsuit, which was not only reported in the newspapers but even made the subject of a book. So the name Mary Crawford was definitely associated with a woman who was an heiress.

[Lord Alexander William Crawford · Lives of the Lindsays; Or, A Memoir of the Houses of Crawford and Balcarres. Volume 2, 1858]  

    In Sense and Sensibility, the Dashwood sisters have a very aristocratic name. Sir Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron Despencer, was Chancellor of the Exchequer under King George II, and founder of both the Society of Dilettanti and the legendary Hellfire Club. His son, Sir James Dashwood, built Kirtlington Park in Oxfordshire. 

    The word Dashwood can also mean a "soft" wood, such as pine, that is easy to work with being less dense and solid than oak and other "hard" woods. This layer of meaning could be very significant. Both Elinor and Marianne have very tender hearts, though only one of the sisters wears hers on her sleeve.

    Edward Ferrars, with whom Elinor falls in love, has an even more aristocratic name. It is very similar to Ferrers, an Anglo-Norman family whose branches were Earls of Derby and Barons Ferrers of Chartley in the middle ages.  The name of his secret fiancée, Lucy Steele, could suggest various meanings. She professes to love Edward but she has a heart of steel - unlike the soft-hearted Dashwoods. As soon as he has confessed the engagement to his mother and been disinherited, she transfers her designs to his brother. The name "Lucy" could also be a subtle hint about how Miss Steele manages to entice and entrap two eligible young men. Is she a "loose woman" i.e. a seductress? 

     In the earlier novel The History of Miss Sidney Biddulph, by Frances Sheridan, the heroine is dissuaded from marrying the man she loves because she learns he has previously had sexual relations with another woman. He is regarded as being therefore obliged to marry her. Only much later does it transpire that she has placed a number of other men under a similar obligation. All we know in Sense and Sensibility is that Edward was very young when he met Lucy, and he was quite possibly innocent enough to be taken in by some such strategem.

    The name Woodhouse in Emma has sometimes been connected with Wentworth-Woodhouse, a sizeable country mansion in the North of England. Yet Emma does not belong to such an exalted class, because although nearly twenty-one she has never been to London, never been presented at court or done a "season". Her father is a country gentleman, affluent enough, but not a great landowner. She has never gone beyond the bounds of Highbury, which is one reason why she is, though "clever", still so clueless about the real world. Another reason is that she does not read, or only reads the sort of romances where obscure orphans turn out to be the long-lost daughters of a royal house.

    The name Frank Churchill is chosen with irony. Young Mr Churchill is anything but frank. He is secretive, in fact downright disingenuous, flirting with Emma to disguise the fact that he is secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. Fairfax is another aristocratic Scottish name, and the senior branch of the family did have a peerage, that of Baron Cameron. The line included Lord Fairfax, the celebrated Civil War General. Despite this distinguished name, Jane is very poor and may have to become a governess. It may be no coincidence that Austen gives this deserving girl her own name.

   In Persuasion, Austen uses many aristocratic names. While Elliot is not a particularly distinguished name, Anne Elliot's best friend, Lady Russell, has the same name as the family of the Dukes of Bedford. At Bath, Sir Walter is anxious to meet his distant relative, Lady Dalrymple. It is a Scottish name, and was the family name of the Earls of Stair, who were also Viscounts Dalrymple. Her daughter in the novel is called Miss Carteret, the surname of the real-life Earl Granville.

       These lustrous names are contrasted with that of Anne's old schoolfriend, Mrs Smith, a name Sir Walter sneers at, and Mrs Clay. The latter, despite her inferior birth, is gaining an ascendancy over Sir Walter, and her name hints at how. "Clay" suggests the body, the flesh and sexual attraction. The word was often used to mean the body as opposed to the soul. 

      Cowper, Jane Austen's favourite poet, wrote:-

"A heav'nly mind May be indiff'rent to her house of clay," i.e. a person with their thoughts fixed on higher things may neglect their appearance and grooming. Mrs Clay is anything but a "heavenly mind". She is definitely a seductress, and it may be that Austen is even hinting that she is Sir Walter's mistress. She does, after all, end by becoming that of Mr Elliot. Austen does not include serious impropriety in the central focus of her novels, preferring to keep it on the margins. There it lurks, waiting for a suspicious reader to detect it. If Isabella St John had been telling this story, she would have made it plain whether Mrs Clay was (or was not) Sir Walter's mistress, but Jane Austen was more "delicate" to use a Regency term.

    Sir Walter speaks highly of a lotion that he says has quite removed Mrs Clay's freckles. We are left to wonder whether the "lotion" she is using is powder and paint. Makeup was used quite freely by ladies in Bath and London but still regarded as immoral by the more strait-laced rural gentry.

     The hero, Captain Wentworth, has a name that neatly sums up how Anne feels about him: she now regrets refusing him, and has come to appreciate his lost worth.

    And what about his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft? The word "croft" is Scottish in origin and means a very modest farm, what would be called in England a small-holding. Until the late 19th century "crofts" were always rented, and a "crofter" was lower in social standing than a farmer, who owned his land. So the implication is that Admiral Croft is of humble social background. We are told, "His manners were not quite of the tone to suit Lady Russell, but they delighted Anne. His goodness of heart and simplicity of character were irresistible”. He has worked his way up to the top of his profession on his own merits. This makes him the antithesis of Sir Walter Elliot, who is born to rank and wealth and is downwardly mobile. 

    Of all names in Jane Austen, Pemberley, the name of Mr Darcy's estate in Derbyshire, is one of the finest, a name, that epitomises everything about the ideal Georgian country estate. It has a comfortable sound, suggesting ease as well as grandeur. It is not Cornish, nor is it Welsh, though it sounds a little like "Pembroke." It was not a common name by any means. There was no real house or village named Pemberley and in fact it seems to originate in a misprint. 

   In 1791, the South Sea Company (of bubble fame) published a list of  The Names and Descriptions of the Proprietors of Unclaimed Dividends on the Publick Funds, The Names and Descriptions of the Proprietors of Unclaimed Dividends on the Publick Funds, The Names and Descriptions of the Proprietors of Unclaimed Dividends on the Publick Funds, Transferable at the South-Sea House, which Became Due Before the 31st December, 1780, and Remained Unpaid the 31st December, 1790.

Here in alphabetical order we find these names:-

Anne Twittey, Pemberley, near Tunbridge, Kent, Widow - -[date when first dividend became payable] April. 1775} [number of dividends due] 1

Thomas Twittey, Pemberley, Kent , deceased.--April 1771 } 2

But there is no house or village called Pemberley in Kent, near Tunbridge Wells. Nor does there seem to have been a Pemberley at any time anywhere else in Britain, or outside it for that matter. There was (and still is) a Kimberley Hall in Norfolk, and a village of Amberley in Herefordshire. There were families by the name of Penderley and Emberley, but no Pemberley so far as I can find.

   Burial records confirm that there was a Thomas Twittey, Esq., who died in 1774 at Penbury, a village that still exists near Tunbridge Wells, (Kent, TN2 4QJ). So the entry must be a misprint or misreading for the name of Penbury.

   Jane Austen may have come across this book in the possession of her brother Henry Austen, the banker. There are in fact four people named Austen listed in it, a Francis Austen, a Robert Austen, an Ann Austen and the Rev. Thomas Austen of St Margaret's, Rochester. The latter was the author of Abstracts from various authors in English, Latin or French relating chiefly to the Antiquities and natural History of England' written in 1767. He also left some commonplace books. He may have been a relative of the Austens of Hampshire. 

     It seems quite possible that Austen glanced through it, and liked the name Pemberley so much that she retained it in her mind for future use. But how fortunate she did not call its owner Thomas Twittey!