What’s in a name?

INSIGHTS

What’s in a name?

Nicola Onyett investigates just how illuminating it can be to examine naming patterns in your A-level literature texts

As Shakespeare’s Juliet once asked, ‘What’s in a name?’ ‘[T]hat which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet’ (2.2.43– 44). Yet names function as symbolic markers of both personal and social identity, as the following character case studies reveal.

Katherine

In The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1595), when Petruchio uses the shortened form ‘Kate’ at their first meeting, Katherine (or Katherina) immediately notices the unwarranted intimacy of this act from a complete stranger: ‘They call me Katherine that do talk of me’ (2.2.183). His gaslighting begins with a denial of Katherine’s right to define herself:

You lie, in faith, for you are called plain Kate, And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate— (2.1.184–87)

Petruchio’s riffing on her name says much about his contrary attitude towards her. Here she is a delicate and tasty morsel of food (a ‘super-dainty’ cate or sweet treat) but later she’s a ‘wild Kate’ (wildcat) and a ‘kite’ (bird of prey) it’s his destiny to tame. Conversely he uses her full name when announcing that he intends to warm himself ‘sweet Katherine, in thy bed’: this nod to her name’s derivation from the Greek meaning ‘pure’ emphasises the value of her virginity.

Meanwhile her sister Bianca’s name, which means ‘white’ in Italian in accordance with her angelic public image, is debased at the end of the play with Petruchio’s crude dig to his brother-in-law, ‘I won the wager, though you hit the white’ (5.5.186). In stating that Lucentio’s hit the centre of the archery target — i.e. scored a bullseye by taking Bianca’s virginity — Petruchio’s remark reflects how far Bianca is seen to have been knocked from her pedestal to make way for her sister: ‘Why there’s a wench! Come on and kiss me, Kate’ (5.2.180).

Elizabeth Bennet

Various modes of address are used for the spirited heroine of Pride and Prejudice (1813). ‘Lizzy’ is a family nickname only ever used by her parents, sisters, aunt and uncle — Mr Collins restricts himself to ‘cousin Elizabeth’. Mr Bingley always calls her ‘Miss Bennet’, even though this form of address is reserved for the eldest daughter only. The implication is that he privately thinks of Elizabeth’s sister much less formally as ‘Jane’.

Sitting midway between the very intimate ‘Lizzy’ and the formally correct ‘Elizabeth’, the distinctive form ‘Eliza’ is used only by the Lucases — Charlotte in particular — and the jealous Caroline Bingley. Thus Miss Bingley’s references to her enemy as ‘Miss Eliza Bennet’ seem impertinent, patronising and unwarranted as she annexes a pet name used exclusively by the heroine’s closest family friends.

Significantly Darcy himself uses the formally correct ‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet’ until famously addressing her as ‘dearest, loveliest Elizabeth’ (III, XVI) when she at last agrees to marry him.

Nora Helmer

Torvald Helmer’s zoomorphic nicknames for his wife attract critical attention in A Doll’s House (1879) as her infantilisation and marginalisation are so clearly underscored by terms of so-called affection, such as ‘little skylark’, ‘spending bird’ and ‘squirrel’. It’s also worth remembering that ‘Nora’ is itself a shortened form of ‘Leonora’, from the Greek meaning ‘light’ or ‘compassion’. Ironically Helmer is personally very touchy about the use of his own name. A significant factor in his denying Nils Krogstad a position at the bank is the worry that if Krogstad calls him ‘Torvald’ instead of ‘Mr Helmer’ in front of the other staff it will undermine his status and authority.

Blanche and Stella

In A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) the discordant clash between the soft-sounding ‘Blanche DuBois’ and the harsher, crisper ‘Stanley Kowalski’ emphasises that while she is a Southern aristocrat of French descent, he is of working-class Polish stock: ‘Kowalski’ is the Polish equivalent of ‘Smith’. Blanche translates her name as ‘white woods’, telling Mitch that he can remember this by imagining ‘an orchard in spring’. The name lines up perfectly with the stage description in Scene 1 of Blanche as ‘incongruous to the setting’ of working-class Elysian Fields, ‘daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district’. Think, too, of the significance of Stella’s renaming: ‘I’m looking for my sister, Stella DuBois,’ says Blanche, ‘I mean — Mrs. Stanley Kowalski’.

Stella’s names encapsulate the irreconcilable tension between her past and present as Blanche’s ‘Stella for star’ becomes Stanley’s ‘STELLLAHHHH!’

Offred

Becoming a surrogate for an infertile elite couple entails a change of name to reflect the narrator of The Handmaid’s Tale’s (1985) subservient status as the property of Commander Fred. While it is hinted that her real name is June, in Gilead she is known by the patronymic ‘Offred’ — literally ‘of/Fred’. Heidi Sletterdahl Macpherson has summarised how this name can be interpreted: ‘she is off-red, or not quite fully aligned with her role; she is offered up; she is off-read, as in mis-read, and she is afraid’ (Macpherson 2010, p. 56).

In emphasising the significance of holding fast to one’s identity when existing within a theocracy gone rogue, The Handmaid’s Tale recalls the climactic moment in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible when John Proctor refuses to sign a false confession: ‘Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies!… How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!’ (Act 4).

Nicola Onyett is a senior examiner for A-level English and head of careers, higher education and EPQ at Queen Margaret’s School, York. She is a member of the ENGLISH REVIEW editorial board.