The Many Names of Charles Dickens

From Ambrosina Events to Zephaniah Ferry, the wonderful character names Dickens never got to use

Joe McKendry

Over the course of his illustrious career, Charles Dickens created hundreds of characters to inhabit his many novels, short stories, and plays. Understandably, thinking of names for these characters was quite a task, and so Dickens kept lists to be considered for future use. Here are excerpts from a single notebook that he called Memoranda and kept from 1855 until 1865.

— Adapted from Lists of Note: An Eclectic Collection Deserving of a Wider Audience, compiled by Shaun Usher (published in June by Chronicle Books)

Boys’ names

ROBERT LADLE

JOLY STICK

BILL MARIGOLD

STEPHEN MARQUICK

JONATHAN KNOTWELL

PHILIP BROWNDRESS

HENRY GHOST

GEORGE MUZZLE

WALTER ASHES

ZEPHANIAH FERRY (or FURY)

WILLIAM WHY

ROBERT GOSPEL

THOMAS FATHERLY

ROBIN SCRUBBAN

Girls’ names

SARAH GOLDSACKS

ROSETTA DUST

SUSAN GOLORING

CATHERINE TWO

MATILDA RAINBIRD

MIRIAM DENIAL

SOPHIA DOOMSDAY

ALICE THORNEYWORE

SALLY GIMBLET

VERITY MAWKYARD

BIRDIE NASH

AMBROSINA EVENTS

APAULINA VERNON

NELTIE ASHFORD