Significance of Names in Shakespeare's King Lear
The Meanings of Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia
Sep 28, 2009
William Shakespeare was not only a master dramatist of his time, but the master dramatist of all time. He dominated language and carefully chose all aspects of his works with a specific purpose, presumably including the names of the characters. His tragedy King Lear is no exception. It is a well crafted tragedy that some critics consider to be his best. This article will explore the meaning and significance, if any, of the names of King Lear’s three daughters: Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia.
Definitions of Goneril, Regan and Cordelia
Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia’s names are all very different in sound and perhaps in meaning as well. Shakespeare’s plays are extremely well annotated and footnoted but the second edition of The Riverside Shakespeare provides no additional information about the girls’ names in the footnotes of King Lear. Dictionaries are equally fruitless in searching for the girls’ names with the possible exception of discovering that Regan is now also the name of a small town in North Dakota and that a moon of Uranus has been named after Cordelia from Shakespeare’s King Lear.
Searching dictionaries for words spelled similarly to the girls’ names produced few results as well. For example, a word close in spelling and pronunciation to Cordelia is cordelle which simply means “a twisted cord” or “a tassel” (“Cordelle”). Goneril’s name sounds a bit like the name of a venereal disease and Regan’s name may make modern audiences recall either a president of the 1980’s or the child from the movie The Exorcist, neither of which have any bearing since Shakespeare would have been clueless about what would happen nearly four hundred years after his time.
Lack of Significant Meaning in Character Names
The lack of a significant meaning for the girls’ names does not lend much credence to the idea that Cordelia’s name has special meaning or significance as compared with her two evil materialistic sisters who vie over their father’s kingdom by attempting to quantify their love for him in Act I, Scene i of King Lear. All three daughters names appear to be empty and meaningless.
Regardless of what may be learned about the seeming lack of meaning of the daughters’ names there are other reasons Shakespeare calls them by what he does.
Historical Name References in King Lear
Like so many of Shakespear's plays King Lear is partially based on another work Shakespeare would have known (Kermode 1298). The work from which Shakespeare derived some of his ideas for King Lear from was similarly titled King Leir, and not surprisingly this play also has three daughters (1298). In this slightly older version of King Leir the daughters’ names were Cordella, Gonorill, and Ragan according to Frank Kermode who wrote King Lear, the introduction to the play in The Riverside Shakespeare.
One can assume that there is a reason Shakespeare did not change the characters' names. While the spellings are slightly different from his source the names are still highly recognizable. One must keep in mind that Shakespeare lived in a time where uniformity of spelling within the English language was not what it is today and it can be stated that the slight differences of a few letters really did not change the names at all.
By not dramatically altering the names of Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan Shakespeare is borrowing greatly from his source, which, as stated above, was not uncommon. Hamlet, another of Shakespeare’s great tragedies, was also based on another play Shakespeare was familiar with. Perhaps, in this instance, by leaving the girls’ names almost exactly the same Shakespeare was attempting to draw on his audience’s knowledge of the previous tellings and retellings of the story of a legendary King Lear.
Why the Names are What They Are
One would imagine Shakespeare had a reason for calling his characters what he did. With so little left to chance in his plays and the intricate word play he employed throughout his texts it is hard to believe he would not consider the importance and significance of characters’ titles.
It can be observed however, that Cordelia’s name is different in sound and tone from Goneril and Regan’s, much like the role she plays in the tragedy. Cordelia is the ever loving daughter whose inaction begins the course of much misfortune despite her own intelligence and innocence. Goneril and Regan take on more masculine dominating positions while usurping their father’s kingdom by quantifying their emotions, and their names, with more consonant harsh sounds, may strike readers as being more masculine than feminine.
Names and Gender Roles in King Lear
Cordelia’s name is obviously feminine; it is difficult to think of a male character being called Cordelia even though we know that in Shakespeare’s time all characters were played by men or boys in costume. But by placing names at polar opposites and invoking gender one begins an entirely different discussion about how Shakespeare manipulated the role of gender in his plays. Perhaps a discussion in the vein would lead to a better understanding of the three daughters’ names in the tragedy of King Lear.
Sources
“Cordelle.” Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary. 1996.
Kermode, Frank. “King Lear.” The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans and J.J.M. Tobin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.1297-1302.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of King Lear. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans and J.J.M. Tobin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 1303-43.
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