What history does your ancestral name tell?

In Regency England, names carried information. A surname hinted at occupation, origin, or ancestry. Names were never random, be they first or sur, as they were all part of the social code.

For aristocrats, the naming traditions favored biblical, classical, or long-established family names. Their given names were often repeated father to son or skipped a generation. Families reused the same names generation after generation to honor lineage and inheritance and show respect. A few popular first names for aristocracy: William, Henry, Charles, George, Edward, John, Frederick.

Aristocratic surnames, meanwhile, carried history. They reflected things like ancient landholdings and Norman ancestry.

Rules for naming aristocrats:

• First names = traditional family names

• Surnames = lineage and land

For commoners, trade surnames like Fletcher (arrow maker), Carter (cart driver), Cooper (barrel maker), Smith (blacksmith), or Baker (a baker) described a family’s work. While we may see these names (among others) as first names today, in the Regency, they would have only been surnames and only for commoners associated with those trades or descended from those trades. Can you guess the trade of someone with the name Taylor, Mason, Tanner, or Miller?

By the 1800s, many people with these surnames were respectable and prosperous, but they never ascended to aristocracy, and thus the upper aristocracy would never have used these names, not for surnames and certainly not for first names. Similarly, commoners would never use a surname for a first name as we often see in modern naming traditions, especially by Americans.

Trade surnames are perfect for characters who are tenants, merchants, soldiers, craftsmen, and servants.

Many of the names we encounter in modern historical romances are inventions of Americans, Victorians, or 20^th & 21^st century naming conventions. Consider names like Braydon, Tyler, or Logan—these definitely would not have been Regency/Georgian era first names or aristocratic surnames.

American naming habits are especially curious and very much not part of the British Regency naming logic. Modern American naming habits are to have unique first names, use surnames as given names, choose something “cool” over lineage continuity, express individualism over inheritance, and use creative spellings. These are the antithesis of Regency naming habits! Brits, especially aristocrats, didn’t name to stand out, but rather to show collective belonging.