The Problem of Names

Why two Thomases and two Annes are not an accident, but a reflection of seventeenth-century England.

Two couples, separated by forty years, share the same Christian names in The Silk & The Sea. To a modern reader, Sir Thomas and Lady Anne Glover, followed by Sir Thomas and Lady Anne Bendysh, may seem an unlikely coincidence. In seventeenth-century England, however, it would be considered normal.

A remarkably narrow choice

The pool of English Christian names in use across the Tudor and Stuart period was extraordinarily narrow. Naming was not an expression of individual identity. It drew on a small stock of family, royal and biblical names, recycled generation after generation.

The custom was to name a newborn after one of the baptismal godparents rather than after a parent. Wealthy or well-regarded members of the community were asked to stand as godparent to many children, so their own names, conventional ones for the most part, circulated endlessly across families. Naming children after a parent or grandparent became common in the seventeenth century, narrowing the pool of names further still.

Five names that dominated

John, William, Thomas, Richard and Robert headed the list of male names in the early modern period. The top three alone accounted for just over half of all males from 1550 to 1599, and again from 1600 to 1649.

For women, Elizabeth, Mary and Anne dominated the seventeenth century. Fifty-two per cent of women born between 1600 and 1649 bore one of the three names.

When history repeats itself

Against those odds, the fact that characters in The Silk & The Sea share the same names is not a coincidence at all. The principal characters of the 1606 to 1612 group and those of the 1647 to 1652 group were Sir Thomas Glover and Lady Anne Glover, followed by Sir Thomas Bendysh and Lady Anne Bendysh.

There is the added complication of the Glover family recycling names within its own ranks. Thomas Glover’s father was Thomas, as was his first cousin. Both cousins received knighthoods, so the title itself does nothing to distinguish them.

A challenge for the novelist

Replacing the historical names for the sake of clarity would create a false impression. The solution was to separate the two couples by form of reference. The earlier pair are called predominantly by their Christian names, Thomas and Anne, while the later pair are called Bendysh and Lady Bendysh.

Mehmet, my fictional character who serves the two Ambassadors, helps to distinguish between them through the way he addresses each man. He calls the first Ambassador ‘Sir Thomas’, but addresses the second simply as ‘Sir’.

This difference is more than a matter of convenience. ‘Sir Thomas’ conveys Mehmet’s personal affection and loyalty towards the man he regards as his Ambassador. By the time Bendysh arrives, Mehmet is older, more experienced and more confident. His use of the less personal ‘Sir’ reflects a degree of emotional distance from Bendysh, who must rely on Mehmet’s experience to guide him through the Ottoman court.

Accuracy without confusion

The repetition of Thomas and Anne may appear confusing to a modern reader, but their shared names are not a failure of invention. They reflect the narrow naming traditions of seventeenth-century England. By distinguishing the two couples through forms of address, I hoped to preserve both historical accuracy and the individuality of the people who bore those names.

Sources

Kevin Schürer, ‘What’s in a name?’, Top of the CamPops, Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, University of Cambridge, 3 July 2025, drawing on Redmonds, Christian Names in Local and Family History (2004); Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names (1948); and Smith-Bannister, Names and Naming Patterns in England 1538–1700 (1997).