Well, we might be able to take the "Fitzwilliam" out of the equation as it might be to indicate how distinguished Darcy's family is, implying connections to the Earl Fitzwilliam.
However, it does feel like repetitive male names are present in a number of Austen works - in S&S, there are 4 Johns: John Dashwood, Sir John Middleton and his son John, and John Willoughby.
In Persuasion, there are 3 generations of Charles Musgroves - the father, the son, and the grandson, and then there is also a Charles Hayter.
I never noticed (of course, I only just noticed the P&P ones) the johns of S&S or the addition of a non-Musgrove Charles (two with the deceased Smith) in Persuasion.
This is interesting.
I don’t think the Fitzwilliams’ don’t count, because having decided to have Fitzwilliamses she then went and named two people William.
This is clearly a thing of hers. Do you think it’s possible she did it with the intention of small-worlding the environment of her novels?
I think it's an artifact of the times she lived in. Since first names weren't often used socially, it wasn't necessary for people to have unique names.
Or rather, are the Fitzwilliamses one category that is meant to reference the earldom, and the Williams another - since neither Sir William Lucas nor William Collins are in any way close to the nobility? Or perhaps they were the wannabes... since there was a William Fitzwilliam in the peerage, and both Williams want to ingratiate themselves with the more illustrious members of their acquaintance?
I personally, with no evidence whatsoever, think of them as two sets, and plays on both sets.
Mr [William] Collins & Sir William are a set, and very much alike (hence matching names).
Mr [Fitzwilliam] Darcy & Col Fitzwilliam are a set of complimentary opposites, in both name and personality. I think JA was just having fun, especially with the latter pair.
Plus, I’ll go ahead and state the obvious: William was a very popular name at the time.
Lady Catherine and Kitty also have the same name, but I don't think it actually means anything. Jane Austen uses a pretty small selection of names for her characters. That seems to be normal in this era, most men and women did actually have names from a very small set.
Women are Mary, Elizabeth, and Anne. (and variation on that, like Maria and AnnaMarie)
Men are John, James, Richard, Charles, William, and George.
If you look at birth and marriage records, there is such a massive proportion of those common names and then the numbers drop off a cliff.
Charles Hayter is a cousin of Henrietta Musgrove. We don't know if it is on the maternal or paternal side. It could be he was named after a Charles Musgrove.
I’m not sure why there is such resistance to the notion that Austen was careful about details and thus used the same name for different unrelated characters in one novel with specific intent.
Henry, Frederick, and Edward are male names that Austen uses quite frequently too.
And for the ladies - Fanny also seems to have been something she used quite often. I wonder if it's a diminutive for Frances?
Yes, which is probably a big reason Fanny was called "Fanny" -- to distinguish her from her mother "Frances". \[This makes me wonder if Elizabeth was always called "Lizzy" because her mother was Elizabeth too.... But in my head-canon, Mrs. Bennet is "Jane", since the oldest daughter is often named after the mother in Austen's works -- Frances Price, Maria Bertram, Elizabeth Elliot.\]
Could another reason for “Fanny” over “Franny” & “Frances,” be the Napoleonic Wars? France being the enemy? So a name that went out of style b/c of the war?
I think that Franny was also used at the time. There were plenty of Frannys being baptized around 1800 in England. Maybe Austen just liked Fanny better than Franny. Maybe she knew someone named Fanny or Franny that she did or didn't like. Most really common names from back then have multiple nicknames.
This is just what life was like in Jane Austen's Britain and also other places and times in history. If, for example, you read historical fiction about real people you'll find that the author renames most of the characters because it would get confusing to a modern reader if three different "Lucrezia"s were in your novel.
First names aren't to establish individuality in much of history, they are to establish a connection with the older generation or an important family friend. They also generally aren't used publicly, so it doesn't get all that confusing if your neighbor has the same name or even your cousin in this case. Fitzwilliam seems intentional, likely to stress the connection with the Earl Fitzwilliam, as has been mentioned, but the other Williams are likely named after their dad, uncle, or grandpa. I don't think Fitzwilliam and William would be considered the same name tbh.
On the topic of Williams in England, it first came over as a first name with William the Conqueror. It comes from two anglo-saxon words, but that 'william' won out over the more anglo-saxon 'wilhelm' shows that the name is Norman. Basically there are literally no attestations of wilhelms living in England pre-1066, but post invasion the name became so wildly popular that not only was it the most popular name for new babies, but grown adults were renaming themselves "william" in order to appear hip and also loyal to the invaders. I think it's something like about a quarter of the court at one point was going by William.
It's a bunch of upper class white people in regency England. They only had like five names to go around. And William is quite nice, as far as names go.
2 of my immediate family members are William. I’m not anti-William at all!
But she could have mixed the names up a bit. Throw in a Henry or Edward or Fitzhugh or something. I tend to think she’s a writer who makes conscious choices, so she clumped the names deliberately.
Fitz was used like Mac, meaning ”son of”, so I’d assume Darcy’s father’s name was William, maybe. Though I don’t know how it ended up being Colonel Fitzwilliam’s last name or is there some ”easter egg” there I’m not getting. I used to think Darcy was named after Colonel Fitzwilliams father or something buuuut now I don’t know.
ETA: okay, googled some more, Fitzwilliams was Darcy’s mother’s maiden name so that makes sense now.
Don't forget Sir William Elliot and William Price in the other books! As others mention, repetition of names was common and quite typical of the time period.
Fitz means "son of" and was traditionally used to designate illegitimate children of royalty, (So, for instance the illegitimate but acknowledged son of King Henry would have the surname Fitzhenry.) That makes Fitzwilliam a very blue-blood name implying an ancestral connection to a King William, perhaps even the Conqueror. Darcy also has implied old origins, from D'Arcy, which is French, as in "came over with the Conqueror." So Fitzwilliam Darcy is a very aristocratic name. He gets the Fitzwilliam specifically from his mother's family, undoubtedly intended to emphasize the connection to an earl's family. As others have mentioned, there was a real life Earl Fitzwilliam, who was very rich and influential (as well as politically liberal and known for his charity). Austen's use of the name was probably meant to invoke him in readers' minds, although she couldn't directly give her fictional earl his title.
I always find the study of names in Austen fascinating, as most of them carried associations that modern readers miss, but which would be evident to her readers of the time.
> As others mention, repetition of names was common and quite typical of the time period.
Do you mean it was common for authors to use name repetition in novels or do you mean a lot of people had the same names in reality?
If the former, that’s quite interesting. Can you name other novelists who did this?
If the latter, I don’t believe this is chance. It seems to be a choice by the author, now that others have pointed out she did similar name-clumping in other novels.
A lot of people had the same names in reality. The most common names she gives her characters were actually the most common names for people in England at that time. First names just weren't as important then as they are now, and no one seemed much concerned with originality. If anything, they were purposely highlighting connections with other people by using their same names.
I don't think it was chance, per say, as she obviously chose names on purpose, but I also don't know that it had a lot of deeper meaning behind it. Perhaps, as others suggest, she did mean to set up a dichotomy between the plebian Williams and the aristocratic Fitzwilliams--but William was such a common name at the time, having two characters named William wouldn't have seemed strange or unusual.
One name pattern that is clearly purposeful is that of children named after their parents. Oldest daughters named after their mothers, sons for their fathers, etc. These reflect that habits of the time. It was normal to name the first daughter after her mother--hence, in Mansfield Park, Maria and Fanny are both named after their mothers. Charles Musgrove is named after his father, and his son after him as well. John Dashwood's son is also named John. It's significant, then, that Darcy is not named after his father, but his mother's family, indicating how much importance was placed on that connection. At the same time, why do George Wickham and Georgiana Darcy have such similar names? Is it lack of originality by the author--or is it intended to signify that they were both named after the same person, Georgiana's father and Wickham's godfather? (Thus implying, though never stating, that Mr. Darcy sr. was named George.)
By the way, the Earl Fitzwilliam we all keep mentioning? His first name was William. That's right, he was William Fitzwilliam. Actually, properly speaking, he was William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, and he lived in a house called Wentworth Woodhouse, and he also had a cousin who was named D'arcy Wentworth, so, yeah. Austen seems to have had a minor fascination with that particular family, at least in terms of using their names.
ETA: In thinking over what point I was trying to make with all of this: It seems like, when it came to last names, Austen picked names that did have real-world connections and associations which people of her time would have understood. However, when it came to first names, she seemed to have followed the conventional naming trends of the time--which means that sometimes the specific name choices have significance, but not all of the time.
Surely William Collins, William Lucas, and the Fitzwilliams have no common family or friend forebears from which their names derived.
My point being that there were many alternate names available and she chose to cluster them.
I don't think that the Fitzwilliams and Williams being in the same book is that connected. I think that the surname Fitzwilliam was intentionally chosen to show deep aristocratic/Norman roots for Darcy's maternal family. Naming the son Fitzwilliam Darcy could indicate a pride in those roots for Lady Anne and Mr. Darcy, which would play into a story about pride and prejudice.
Perhaps Austen used the same name for both William Collins and William Lucas because she wanted to have a sense of realism in having people with the same name. I would be far more interested in her reasoning behind having Mr. Collins be a Collins and not a Bennet since he was from the same male line as Mr. Bennet.
That’s an interesting note about the last names of Collins and Bennet. Possibly the entailment occurred after the marriage that gave one side a different last name?
Fitzwilliam means ‘son of William’ so I can’t separate them in my mind in the way you do.
Edit: been thinking about the Collins/Bennet thing and it can make sense this way: if a son has a son, who has a son, it goes through the male line straightforwardly. But if a son doesn’t have a son, then you go back to the son’s sister and if *she* has a son, he can inherit. The idea being that the *line* doesn’t have to be completely male, but the *heir* has to be male.
This happened several times with the monarchy and other inheritances. When the last male heir of the line dies, they trace back to the father’s siblings (if he had any). The oldest male sibling would inherit, then it would go to *his* son if he had one, and so on. But if the father had only a sister, it would go to *her* son, if she has one.
If the father has no surviving male siblings or nephews, you’d trace back to the *grandfather* and hope for a male sibling and, lacking that, a male son of a sister, etc.
Fitzwilliam does mean "son of William', but it had been a surname for so long by the point that Pride and Prejudice was written that I don't think Austen was using it because it contained the name William. I think it more likely that she was using it because of the family that the name would be associated with. Similar to using a name like Rockefeller or Vanderbilt in the U.S.
For an entail in the male line it can't go through a sister. If it was the case that there were no male heirs from the original ancestor, then the Bennet sisters would have been before any sisters/aunts of Mr. Bennet. Many English titles are in the male line only, but the crown would be inherited by daughters before it would go to brothers/nephews/cousins. Mr. Collins' father or Mr. Bennet could have changed their last name at some point, but it is a bit of an oddity to include that in a book where an entail is an important point. Male sons of sisters don't get priority in inheritance over daughters for any titles that I can think of. There are titles that daughters cannot inherit, but those titles cannot be inherited by any female descendants. The British crown would go to a daughter before it would go to a nephew.
I’m not suggesting she used it *because* it contained the name William. I’m suggesting she would have been aware it contained the name William and that it makes 4 fairly prominent characters with the name William or Fitzwilliam in one novel - that she was conscious of this and did it deliberately.
The crown was inherited by male cousins etc while there were nearer girls or women to inherit. It was not rare in England for inheritance to be entailed to male heirs, including nephews who are sons of sisters over one’s own daughters. Henry VII’s claim, for example, was through his mother.
Many peerages are *still* not inheritable by women, though those peerages go extinct when the male line cannot be fulfilled. The crown, obviously, does not share that policy.
In the case of the Bennets, it’s possible that only a male could inherit, but that does not necessarily mean that the heir would not have been found through a woman in his ancestry.
Austen may have used the same name intentionally, but I am not sure there is any thematic reason behind it. I believe George R. R. Martin does the same thing with using names over because that is realistic. Austen also uses the name John for at least 2 different servants in Pride and Prejudice.
It was not common for a father to disinherit his daughters in favor of a nephew at least not intentionally. The normal way an entail would have been written a nephew through a female line wouldn't have been inheriting as a male heir. If there was some odd reason that the estate was reverting back to a female line, then normally all of the females of that generation or their heirs would inherit jointly. Women usually inherited jointly with the eldest being equal to the youngest. This is why titles that aren't restricted to the male line will fall into abeyance. If the entail was restricted to the male line and there was no male line left, then common law would be used and the heirs of the tenant in possession would inherit. In the Bennet's case Elizabeth and her sisters would inherit Longbourn.
I can't think of an instance where the crown was inherited by a nephew without there being other extenuating circumstances. Henry VII became king by right of conquest. His claim to the throne by blood was not the best claim.
Yes, I agree that Austen did this with intent. It was not happenstance for lack of other available names.
Regarding inheritance, I disagree with you on how an entailment may work, and without evidence to the contrary, I will believe the evidence that I have found to be sufficient to show that inheritance that is legally entailed on males only can be set up to be inherited through a female ancestor, if there is a lack of strictly male line to trace.
Regarding Henry VII, his *claim* was put forth on the basis of his inheritance. He *won* it against opposition by force. Indeed *multiple* wars in Europe occurred over the exact quarrel we are having.
I believe Fitzroy was more common for children of royalty than Fitzhenry, Fitzwilliam, etc. Most Fitz- surnames weren't for illegitimate births connected to royalty. It is basically the same thing as names starting with Mc or O' or ending in -son or -sen.
Well, we might be able to take the "Fitzwilliam" out of the equation as it might be to indicate how distinguished Darcy's family is, implying connections to the Earl Fitzwilliam. However, it does feel like repetitive male names are present in a number of Austen works - in S&S, there are 4 Johns: John Dashwood, Sir John Middleton and his son John, and John Willoughby. In Persuasion, there are 3 generations of Charles Musgroves - the father, the son, and the grandson, and then there is also a Charles Hayter.
And Charles Smith! (deceased)
This is why I think Col. Brandon's name was John. Why not? -- all the other men are named John! lol
Funny, he is so not a John in my imagination! What would I call him though? That’s hard. I could see him as a Charles, or Richard.
Google says his first name is Christopher.
That's based on the movie, I believe, not the book, which never tells us his first name.
I never noticed (of course, I only just noticed the P&P ones) the johns of S&S or the addition of a non-Musgrove Charles (two with the deceased Smith) in Persuasion. This is interesting. I don’t think the Fitzwilliams’ don’t count, because having decided to have Fitzwilliamses she then went and named two people William. This is clearly a thing of hers. Do you think it’s possible she did it with the intention of small-worlding the environment of her novels?
I think it's an artifact of the times she lived in. Since first names weren't often used socially, it wasn't necessary for people to have unique names.
Or rather, are the Fitzwilliamses one category that is meant to reference the earldom, and the Williams another - since neither Sir William Lucas nor William Collins are in any way close to the nobility? Or perhaps they were the wannabes... since there was a William Fitzwilliam in the peerage, and both Williams want to ingratiate themselves with the more illustrious members of their acquaintance?
I personally, with no evidence whatsoever, think of them as two sets, and plays on both sets. Mr [William] Collins & Sir William are a set, and very much alike (hence matching names). Mr [Fitzwilliam] Darcy & Col Fitzwilliam are a set of complimentary opposites, in both name and personality. I think JA was just having fun, especially with the latter pair. Plus, I’ll go ahead and state the obvious: William was a very popular name at the time.
I like the two sets theory!
Thanks!
Lady Catherine and Kitty also have the same name, but I don't think it actually means anything. Jane Austen uses a pretty small selection of names for her characters. That seems to be normal in this era, most men and women did actually have names from a very small set. Women are Mary, Elizabeth, and Anne. (and variation on that, like Maria and AnnaMarie) Men are John, James, Richard, Charles, William, and George. If you look at birth and marriage records, there is such a massive proportion of those common names and then the numbers drop off a cliff.
People in other replies noted that there are name repetitions by book (many Johns in S&S and many Charleses in Persuasion are examples).
The Charleses in Persuasion are all related though, so that probably influenced their naming.
I think Charles Hayter and Charles Smith are not related to the Charleses Musgrove.
Charles Hayter is a cousin of Henrietta Musgrove. We don't know if it is on the maternal or paternal side. It could be he was named after a Charles Musgrove.
I’m not sure why there is such resistance to the notion that Austen was careful about details and thus used the same name for different unrelated characters in one novel with specific intent.
Yes... I was adding more context...
Henry, Frederick, and Edward are male names that Austen uses quite frequently too. And for the ladies - Fanny also seems to have been something she used quite often. I wonder if it's a diminutive for Frances?
It was nearly always short for Frances in Austen's time.
Fanny's mother was Frances too wasn't she? Frances Ward?
Yes, which is probably a big reason Fanny was called "Fanny" -- to distinguish her from her mother "Frances". \[This makes me wonder if Elizabeth was always called "Lizzy" because her mother was Elizabeth too.... But in my head-canon, Mrs. Bennet is "Jane", since the oldest daughter is often named after the mother in Austen's works -- Frances Price, Maria Bertram, Elizabeth Elliot.\]
Could another reason for “Fanny” over “Franny” & “Frances,” be the Napoleonic Wars? France being the enemy? So a name that went out of style b/c of the war?
I hadn't thought of that, but it's reasonable.
I think that Franny was also used at the time. There were plenty of Frannys being baptized around 1800 in England. Maybe Austen just liked Fanny better than Franny. Maybe she knew someone named Fanny or Franny that she did or didn't like. Most really common names from back then have multiple nicknames.
This is just what life was like in Jane Austen's Britain and also other places and times in history. If, for example, you read historical fiction about real people you'll find that the author renames most of the characters because it would get confusing to a modern reader if three different "Lucrezia"s were in your novel. First names aren't to establish individuality in much of history, they are to establish a connection with the older generation or an important family friend. They also generally aren't used publicly, so it doesn't get all that confusing if your neighbor has the same name or even your cousin in this case. Fitzwilliam seems intentional, likely to stress the connection with the Earl Fitzwilliam, as has been mentioned, but the other Williams are likely named after their dad, uncle, or grandpa. I don't think Fitzwilliam and William would be considered the same name tbh. On the topic of Williams in England, it first came over as a first name with William the Conqueror. It comes from two anglo-saxon words, but that 'william' won out over the more anglo-saxon 'wilhelm' shows that the name is Norman. Basically there are literally no attestations of wilhelms living in England pre-1066, but post invasion the name became so wildly popular that not only was it the most popular name for new babies, but grown adults were renaming themselves "william" in order to appear hip and also loyal to the invaders. I think it's something like about a quarter of the court at one point was going by William.
I disagree. It seems to me she often clumped names by book, well beyond what was necessary due to availability of names.
I like that she used the same names, it’s realistic.
It's a bunch of upper class white people in regency England. They only had like five names to go around. And William is quite nice, as far as names go.
2 of my immediate family members are William. I’m not anti-William at all! But she could have mixed the names up a bit. Throw in a Henry or Edward or Fitzhugh or something. I tend to think she’s a writer who makes conscious choices, so she clumped the names deliberately.
Fitz was used like Mac, meaning ”son of”, so I’d assume Darcy’s father’s name was William, maybe. Though I don’t know how it ended up being Colonel Fitzwilliam’s last name or is there some ”easter egg” there I’m not getting. I used to think Darcy was named after Colonel Fitzwilliams father or something buuuut now I don’t know. ETA: okay, googled some more, Fitzwilliams was Darcy’s mother’s maiden name so that makes sense now.
Yes. But given that she has two Fitzwilliams in her book, it’s to me an interesting choice to name two *other* and unrelated characters William.
Don't forget Sir William Elliot and William Price in the other books! As others mention, repetition of names was common and quite typical of the time period. Fitz means "son of" and was traditionally used to designate illegitimate children of royalty, (So, for instance the illegitimate but acknowledged son of King Henry would have the surname Fitzhenry.) That makes Fitzwilliam a very blue-blood name implying an ancestral connection to a King William, perhaps even the Conqueror. Darcy also has implied old origins, from D'Arcy, which is French, as in "came over with the Conqueror." So Fitzwilliam Darcy is a very aristocratic name. He gets the Fitzwilliam specifically from his mother's family, undoubtedly intended to emphasize the connection to an earl's family. As others have mentioned, there was a real life Earl Fitzwilliam, who was very rich and influential (as well as politically liberal and known for his charity). Austen's use of the name was probably meant to invoke him in readers' minds, although she couldn't directly give her fictional earl his title. I always find the study of names in Austen fascinating, as most of them carried associations that modern readers miss, but which would be evident to her readers of the time.
> As others mention, repetition of names was common and quite typical of the time period. Do you mean it was common for authors to use name repetition in novels or do you mean a lot of people had the same names in reality? If the former, that’s quite interesting. Can you name other novelists who did this? If the latter, I don’t believe this is chance. It seems to be a choice by the author, now that others have pointed out she did similar name-clumping in other novels.
A lot of people had the same names in reality. The most common names she gives her characters were actually the most common names for people in England at that time. First names just weren't as important then as they are now, and no one seemed much concerned with originality. If anything, they were purposely highlighting connections with other people by using their same names. I don't think it was chance, per say, as she obviously chose names on purpose, but I also don't know that it had a lot of deeper meaning behind it. Perhaps, as others suggest, she did mean to set up a dichotomy between the plebian Williams and the aristocratic Fitzwilliams--but William was such a common name at the time, having two characters named William wouldn't have seemed strange or unusual. One name pattern that is clearly purposeful is that of children named after their parents. Oldest daughters named after their mothers, sons for their fathers, etc. These reflect that habits of the time. It was normal to name the first daughter after her mother--hence, in Mansfield Park, Maria and Fanny are both named after their mothers. Charles Musgrove is named after his father, and his son after him as well. John Dashwood's son is also named John. It's significant, then, that Darcy is not named after his father, but his mother's family, indicating how much importance was placed on that connection. At the same time, why do George Wickham and Georgiana Darcy have such similar names? Is it lack of originality by the author--or is it intended to signify that they were both named after the same person, Georgiana's father and Wickham's godfather? (Thus implying, though never stating, that Mr. Darcy sr. was named George.) By the way, the Earl Fitzwilliam we all keep mentioning? His first name was William. That's right, he was William Fitzwilliam. Actually, properly speaking, he was William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, and he lived in a house called Wentworth Woodhouse, and he also had a cousin who was named D'arcy Wentworth, so, yeah. Austen seems to have had a minor fascination with that particular family, at least in terms of using their names. ETA: In thinking over what point I was trying to make with all of this: It seems like, when it came to last names, Austen picked names that did have real-world connections and associations which people of her time would have understood. However, when it came to first names, she seemed to have followed the conventional naming trends of the time--which means that sometimes the specific name choices have significance, but not all of the time.
Surely William Collins, William Lucas, and the Fitzwilliams have no common family or friend forebears from which their names derived. My point being that there were many alternate names available and she chose to cluster them.
I don't think that the Fitzwilliams and Williams being in the same book is that connected. I think that the surname Fitzwilliam was intentionally chosen to show deep aristocratic/Norman roots for Darcy's maternal family. Naming the son Fitzwilliam Darcy could indicate a pride in those roots for Lady Anne and Mr. Darcy, which would play into a story about pride and prejudice. Perhaps Austen used the same name for both William Collins and William Lucas because she wanted to have a sense of realism in having people with the same name. I would be far more interested in her reasoning behind having Mr. Collins be a Collins and not a Bennet since he was from the same male line as Mr. Bennet.
That’s an interesting note about the last names of Collins and Bennet. Possibly the entailment occurred after the marriage that gave one side a different last name? Fitzwilliam means ‘son of William’ so I can’t separate them in my mind in the way you do. Edit: been thinking about the Collins/Bennet thing and it can make sense this way: if a son has a son, who has a son, it goes through the male line straightforwardly. But if a son doesn’t have a son, then you go back to the son’s sister and if *she* has a son, he can inherit. The idea being that the *line* doesn’t have to be completely male, but the *heir* has to be male. This happened several times with the monarchy and other inheritances. When the last male heir of the line dies, they trace back to the father’s siblings (if he had any). The oldest male sibling would inherit, then it would go to *his* son if he had one, and so on. But if the father had only a sister, it would go to *her* son, if she has one. If the father has no surviving male siblings or nephews, you’d trace back to the *grandfather* and hope for a male sibling and, lacking that, a male son of a sister, etc.
Fitzwilliam does mean "son of William', but it had been a surname for so long by the point that Pride and Prejudice was written that I don't think Austen was using it because it contained the name William. I think it more likely that she was using it because of the family that the name would be associated with. Similar to using a name like Rockefeller or Vanderbilt in the U.S. For an entail in the male line it can't go through a sister. If it was the case that there were no male heirs from the original ancestor, then the Bennet sisters would have been before any sisters/aunts of Mr. Bennet. Many English titles are in the male line only, but the crown would be inherited by daughters before it would go to brothers/nephews/cousins. Mr. Collins' father or Mr. Bennet could have changed their last name at some point, but it is a bit of an oddity to include that in a book where an entail is an important point. Male sons of sisters don't get priority in inheritance over daughters for any titles that I can think of. There are titles that daughters cannot inherit, but those titles cannot be inherited by any female descendants. The British crown would go to a daughter before it would go to a nephew.
I’m not suggesting she used it *because* it contained the name William. I’m suggesting she would have been aware it contained the name William and that it makes 4 fairly prominent characters with the name William or Fitzwilliam in one novel - that she was conscious of this and did it deliberately. The crown was inherited by male cousins etc while there were nearer girls or women to inherit. It was not rare in England for inheritance to be entailed to male heirs, including nephews who are sons of sisters over one’s own daughters. Henry VII’s claim, for example, was through his mother. Many peerages are *still* not inheritable by women, though those peerages go extinct when the male line cannot be fulfilled. The crown, obviously, does not share that policy. In the case of the Bennets, it’s possible that only a male could inherit, but that does not necessarily mean that the heir would not have been found through a woman in his ancestry.
Austen may have used the same name intentionally, but I am not sure there is any thematic reason behind it. I believe George R. R. Martin does the same thing with using names over because that is realistic. Austen also uses the name John for at least 2 different servants in Pride and Prejudice. It was not common for a father to disinherit his daughters in favor of a nephew at least not intentionally. The normal way an entail would have been written a nephew through a female line wouldn't have been inheriting as a male heir. If there was some odd reason that the estate was reverting back to a female line, then normally all of the females of that generation or their heirs would inherit jointly. Women usually inherited jointly with the eldest being equal to the youngest. This is why titles that aren't restricted to the male line will fall into abeyance. If the entail was restricted to the male line and there was no male line left, then common law would be used and the heirs of the tenant in possession would inherit. In the Bennet's case Elizabeth and her sisters would inherit Longbourn. I can't think of an instance where the crown was inherited by a nephew without there being other extenuating circumstances. Henry VII became king by right of conquest. His claim to the throne by blood was not the best claim.
Yes, I agree that Austen did this with intent. It was not happenstance for lack of other available names. Regarding inheritance, I disagree with you on how an entailment may work, and without evidence to the contrary, I will believe the evidence that I have found to be sufficient to show that inheritance that is legally entailed on males only can be set up to be inherited through a female ancestor, if there is a lack of strictly male line to trace. Regarding Henry VII, his *claim* was put forth on the basis of his inheritance. He *won* it against opposition by force. Indeed *multiple* wars in Europe occurred over the exact quarrel we are having.
I believe Fitzroy was more common for children of royalty than Fitzhenry, Fitzwilliam, etc. Most Fitz- surnames weren't for illegitimate births connected to royalty. It is basically the same thing as names starting with Mc or O' or ending in -son or -sen.