Etymology of Names in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night"

When reading a book or watching a play or movie, you rarely dwell on the characters’ names. Is every character's name an intentional addition to the story or just a necessary title to distinguish between roles? Are names just reflections of popular names of the time that the story was written in or could they hold deeper meanings of the character’s personality or part in the plot? Regardless of whether the author intentionally wanted these subtextual meanings, it is certainly compelling to analyze. Let us begin with one of history’s most well-known playwrights, William (“will, desire, helmet, protection”) Shakespeare (“to shake, spear”).

The play “Twelfth Night” or “What You Will” by William Shakespeare was published in 1623 but was originally performed in in 1602 in celebration of the now neglected Christian holiday, the Twelfth Night. When reading or watching “Twelfth Night”, one wouldn’t question the name of the play, even though it has no relevance to the plot. The names of our characters, though, we do think about.

One of the main characters has two names: Viola, her original name, and Cesario, her masculine persona’s name. The name Viola was first coined by Shakespeare for this play from the Latin word for violet. The violet flower is known to symbolize love and softness, similar to how Viola feels towards Duke Orsino, to whom she is an attendant to. The name Cesario is the Portuguese form of the Latin name Cesarius, which was derived from the name Caesar which means ‘hair’ from the Latin word ‘caesaries’. In the beginning of the play, Viola cuts off her hair to become Cesario. Her hair is important to her character as it shows the change that she undergoes as well as represent her femininity, or lack of.

Feste is the jester for the countess Olivia. Olivia falls in love with Viola/Cesario. Feste is derived from the Latin word ‘festum” which means festive, joyous, and merry. Throughout the play, many characters do many silly things, but Feste the clown remains wise and unbothered. He acts as an onlooker into the action, not getting too involved. As the countess, the count, the twins, and others act foolish, the fool remains rational. This is an example of irony in relation to the character, the role he plays in society, and his name.

In a story, the heroes need a villain. The villain in “Twelfth Night” is the countess Olivia’s tense steward, Malvolio. His intentions are to marry Olivia and become “Count Malvolio”, but he doesn’t succeed or come very close to prevailing. His role as a villain is not even evident until quite far along in the play. Even when the audience knows his motive, he is still more a comedic and ridiculous character who embarresses himself than an intiminating villain . At the end of the play we even pity him. The name Malvolio was invented by Shakespeare and is directly from the Italian word “ill will”, which is true for the character as he does have a corrupt goal. The Latin root ‘mal’ means evil, and has many negative derivatives such as malicious or malevolent. Having the villain have ‘mal’ in their name is common, like Maleficent, if not contrived, but with Malvolio, the audience doesn’t realize that he is the villain until later on, so the ‘mal’ part of his name is more of an indication or clue to a deeper part of the character.

In life, names are something that is special to us, whether you’re Emma or Esme, Liam or Lennox, names give us another layer.