Hi, my name is Ellie Dashwood and this is another episode of Dashie Notes.
Today, we'll be talking about forms of address in period
dramas and classic literature.
Oh, Mr.Darcy, he's just so wonderful.
He has a beautiful estate, good manners, well, by the end of the
book, he has good manners, and such a noble sounding name, doesn't he?
Mr Darcy.
But does he have a first name?
If you really think about it, everyone calls him Mr.
Darcy, Lizzie, Bingley, even his aunt calls him Darcy.
Did his mom not give them a first name or is he just too stuck up to use it?
Those are good questions.
And today we'll be answering them for you right here on Dashie Notes,
where we answer your modern day questions about classic literature.
So does Mr.
Darcy have a first name?
Yes.
Yes, he does.
It is: Fitzwilliam.
Doesn't that sound noble.
You probably recognize Mr.
Darcy's first name, Fitzwilliam, as his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliams' last name.
But why does he have this cousin's last name as his first name?
Because it was his mother's maiden name.
And since it was a name of distinction and he was given it as his first name as sort
of like a hereditary nod to her family.
So if his first name is Fitzwilliam, then why does no one call him Fitzwilliam?
They're always calling him Darcy.
In fact, we only have two instances in the book where we learned his name at all.
And one of them is when he signs that passionate letter, he writes to
Elizabeth defending himself against all of her slanderous lies about him.
The answer lies in the social customs of Victorian and Georgian England.
England of 1800s had a lot of strict rules about names, titles, honorifics.
And all of those things that seem very, very different from today.
So today we'll be going over sort of four rule areas with regard to names
so we can understand them better.
One is titles and respect.
Two is dealing with multiples.
Three is first names.
And four is love and marriage.
First, forms of address and respect.
So coming from our modern sensibilities, where we run around calling everyone by
their first name, it might seem extremely formal and stiff when we watch period
dramas, or we read classic literature.
Here, we have Mrs.
Bennet, and all those like her, running around calling their husbands
by their title and last name.
AKA Mr.
Bennet, AKA "Mr Bennet!
My poor nerves!"
Hopefully, not all the wives are that dramatic though.
But really we have to understand the Regency mindset to
appreciate why they did this.
It was an era where they were very, very concerned with
stuff like honor and respect.
And calling someone by their title and last name was a sign of respect and
honor, and their position in society, even if you were related to them.
Usually the use of a first name was very limited and it denoted either
a highly close relationship such as siblings or very close friends.
Or it was even a mark of disrespect or lower honor.
In that often servants were called by their first name before they
worked their way up to that higher ranking of being either like the
head housekeeper or the butler.
At which point, they got the dignity of being called by their last name.
So in this video, we'll be talking more about the titles, Mr., Mrs.
and Miss.
And I'll leave the other more peerage titles, such as Lord and lady and
Duke and Duchess and all those for another episode of Dashie Notes.
Just very looking forward to that one.
I will tell you in that one about how I almost met a Duchess once.
Yeah.
Me.
Yeah, I know.
It's quite exciting.
So have you ever wondered what the term Mister came from?
Well, it's simply a title that's been used in England for a very long time.
And it's the rank below baronet.
AKA, if you don't make it up to baronet, then you just gotta be a Mister and below.
And what about Mrs?
And Miss?
Where did those come from?
Well, Mrs and Miss are both contractions of the word Mistress.
Okay.
So if you watch Masterpiece Theater's Poldark, which if you don't, I suggest
you should, you get to see them use the full term Mistress a lot.
They're always calling Demelza or Elizabeth Mistress Poldark, because
in reality, the term Missus is just a shortened form of Mistress.
Also, Miss is another shortened form of Mistress.
Only, Miss applies to women who are not married.
Mrs, of course, applies to women who are married.
Also, if you're a servant and you reach a certain rank in the household, such
as being a head housekeeper or the head nanny, or you're maybe the cook in a
really big household, then you get to be called Mrs, even if you're single.
Because it's just such a title of distinction.
Now, have you ever wondered, is there a male equivalent of Miss?
Sort of like there's Mr and Mrs and then there's Miss and then?
The answer is yes, there is.
And it is Master.
And you may have seen this in some period dramas or in some classic books
you've read where they call a young man who's not coming of age yet Master.
And that is the term for it.
It's fallen mostly out of use today.
You don't really see anyone calling anyone Master.
And even if you did, that'd sound kind of weird.
So we actually see this in Return to Cranford where Tom
Hiddleston plays, I believe, his character is named William Buxton.
And the old ladies are like, "Oh, Master Buxton's come back."
Only, he's all grown up now.
And they're like, "Oh, he's not Master Buxton anymore.
He's Mr.
Buxton."
Because unlike Miss which transitions from Miss to Mrs upon marriage, men
transfer from Master to Mister upon growing up and becoming an adult.
Part two, dealing with multiples.
Okay.
So we've established that in Regency England, to show people
honor, we're going to call them Mr, Miss, Mrs, then their last name.
But, what if there's a bunch of them?
Like in the Bennet family, there's like five girls.
Are they all Miss Bennet?
How do you keep them straight?
And here enters the rule for multiples with siblings.
Which is the oldest sibling gets simply have the honor of
being titled plus last name.
Henceforth, Jane Bennet, since she's the oldest gets to be Miss Bennet.
However, her younger siblings have to be Title First Name Last Name.
That's why when they're introduced there is Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth
Bennet, Miss Mary Bennet, Miss Catherine Bennet and Miss Lydia Bennet.
That all changes when one of the older sisters get married.
So when both Elizabeth and Jane get married, that means the next
oldest girl in line is Mary.
So Mary now gets to be Miss Bennet.
And Kitty's just stuck being Miss Catherine Bennet.
Honestly, I think Miss Catherine Bennet though, is going to be a much
better match than Miss Mary Bennet.
Got feel kind of sorry for her.
And the same rule applies to guys.
For example, in Mansfield Park, we have two sons and the
older one, Tom, gets to be Mr.
Bertram.
And the younger one is Mr.
Edmund Bertram.
Only the whole marriage thing doesn't work there, cause guys last names don't change.
So he's going to be stuck being Mr.
Edmund Bertram for a long time.
So part three, first names.
So you have all these rules, all these people being Title plus Last Name.
Did they ever use their first name?
Well, of course they did, but just like everything else,
there was rules to this too.
Firstly, women were more likely to be on a first name basis with their
friends and family the men were.
That's why we see so many people calling Elizabeth, Lizzy, in Pride and Prejudice.
Meanwhile, most men, the most endearing people got to them was
that they left off the title and just called them by their last name.
So if you were Mr.
Darcy's really, really best friend, you've got to move up to calling him Darcy.
I know it's so much like closer than Mr.
Darcy.
And this is really demonstrated well in the newer version of
Emma with Romola Garai, when Mrs.
Elton comes along and calls Mr.
Knightley, Knightley.
And she barely met him and Emma's just like, "I have known Mr.
Knightley my entire life.
And I don't even call him that."
Yeah.
It's quite an outrage.
It's like she dropped off Mr.
What does she think?
That they're best friends.
That is getting too close right there.
So one of the exceptions in the first name world is if your siblings, cousins, or
childhood friends that grew up together.
Since children were often called by their first name while they grew up, friends
who grew up together were used to calling each other by their first name too.
We see different examples of this principle play out.
For example, with brother and sister, we have Mary Crawford who
always calls her brother, Henry.
We also in Mansfield Park have Fanny Price, who calls her cousin Edmund because
they're cousins and they grew up together.
In Emma, we have a great example of childhood friends calling
each other by their first name.
Or in fact, this one is a little bit different because Emma and Mr.
Knightley, were somewhat children at the same time, cause he was 16
when she was born, but they still sort of grew up childhood friends.
And so that's why he calls her Emma, but she calls him Mr.
Knightley, because he's still so much older than her.
And of course, this is also why Mr.
Collins can come in and start talking to his Cousin Elizabeth by her
first name because it's his cousin.
Which I'm not quite a fan of the rule in that area when it comes to Mr.
Collins.
Part four, love and marriage.
So outside of siblings and childhood friends, it really was not appropriate
for a man to call a lady by her first name, unless they were engaged.
In fact, if the guy started calling you by like your first name and you
weren't engaged to him, you'd be like, "Um, Are you asking me to marry you?
I'm kind of confused.
I don't know what's happening here."
So much drama is happening in the Regency England of my imagination, apparently.
But we see this in Pride and Prejudice, because as soon as Mr Darcy proposes
to Lizzy again, and she accepts him, he says, "My sweetest, loveliest Elizabeth."
And that right there is him immediately jumping on the
chance to use her first name.
Because up until that time, he did not have the social right to,
but now he can call her Elizabeth.
But have you ever noticed, even though he starts calling her
Elizabeth, she still calls him Darcy.
One reason could be because nobody uses his first name and that'd be kind
of weird to start all of a sudden.
But we still see that high level of formality, even
between wives and husbands.
Or they would call each other by their first name in private, but in the
company, or when talking to someone else, they still refer to him as Mr.
or Mrs.
So-and-so.
So she would be like, "Mr.
Darcy is home, you know, to my giant mansion."
So in conclusion, does Mr.
Darcy have a first name?
Yes.
Yes, he does.
It is Fitzwilliam, but he doesn't hear that name often because of
the very formal way people were addressed during Regency England time.
And that's why a lot of people don't even know he has a first name
because it's hidden deep in the secrets of Pride and Prejudice.
Okay. It's not that secret.
You just, you know, open the book and look for it.
But still, it's unknown to many.
So in the comments below, tell me what would your name and title be
if you lived in Regency England?
I would, of course be Miss Dashwood because I'm the oldest and I would
be Miss Dashwood until I got married.
And then of course I'd be Mrs.
Darcy.
Okay.
No, not really.
I think if I was really going to marry, like any of Jane Austen's
heroes, I'd want to marry Henry Tilney.
So I guess I'd be Mrs.
Tilney, but still it's not.
I don't know, Mrs.
Tilney.
Interesting thoughts there.
Okay.
So thank you again for watching my episode of Dashie Notes.
My name is Ellie Dashwood and I hope this has answered a modern day question
you have about classic literature.
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