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The Naming Of Characters In The Works Of Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Hope Gordon

University of Nebraska Studies in Language, Literature, and Criticism

An extensive examination of the names of characters in the works of the majority of nineteenth and twentieth century novelists would obviously be of little value, for the growing tendency toward the commonplace in realism has necessitated the selection of neutral names or names taken outright from actual persons. Though few of the characters in recent fiction are so handicapped by inappropriate names as are many people in real life,-where, to quote a modern poet, "surnames ever go by contraries"-still, with the contemporary novelists, there is usually nothing in a name to denote an intimate correspondence between it and the …