Character Names in the Waverley Novels

• Published in: PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
• Main Author: Parsons, Coleman Oscar
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Modern Language Association (MLA) 1934
• Subjects: Dickens; Greenland; Grubb; Montague; Toogood; Valet
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/458251; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0030812900064221

One of the longest established conventions in English literature is that of giving self-interpreting names to characters. Scores of instances might be drawn from morality plays, Elizabethan and Restoration drama, with its Justice Greedys and Lovelesses, and eighteenth-century novels and plays, with their Slipslops and Lydia Languishes. During Scott's day George Colman the Younger, in his The Heir at Law , 1808, entertained audiences with Stedfasts and Homespuns and references to Lawyer Ferret, Lady Littlefigure, Lord Sponge, Mrs. Holdbank, Lady Betty Pillory, the Hon. Mrs. Cheatwell, Lord Spindle, Master Drumstick, Mrs. Sudds, Old Latitat (a lawyer, of course), Lord Loggerhead, Lord Docktail, Twist, and Young Vats (the beau brewer). Later in the century, Dickens peopled his pages with Mr. Glibs, Surgeon Slashers, and Professor Wheezys; but, as most of his names were chosen solely for their comicality, they lack suggestive variety. Thackeray's social satire is at times unreal because of an excessive use of telltale soubriquets; this is particularly true of The Book of Snobs with its infinity of Lord and Lady Snobbingtons. George Eliot exhibits little subtlety in this field; perhaps the most obvious instances are those of Scrag Whale, an explorer, Greenland Grampus, Proteus Merman, and Professor Sperm N. Whale in Theophrastus Such. The convention has even survived to the present day, though with somewhat impaired vitality. Mr. Burthen, a carrier, Mr. Bulge, a wine merchant, Dr. Chestman, Hardman, a blacksmith, Louisa Menlove, Rootle, a dentist, Tipman, a valet, and Parson Billy Toogood appear in Hardy's novels; and the Earl of Frogs, Gosling, an apprentice, Grubb, Lady Hammergallow, Mrs. Jabber, and Mrs. Montague Pangs in those of H. G. Wells.