After discovering that her lover's surname is Montague, the name of her family's enemies, Juliet Capulet asks, “What's in a name?” The exchange that follows between Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers forms the basis of Laurie Maguire's study of onomastics, language, identity, and cultural inheritance. Shakespeare's Names offers a formalist analysis of character names and place names in several of Shakespeare's plays and all of the inherent issues of naming, renaming, and unnaming. Maguire insists that her premise is “simple: names matter; and names are matter” (4). Her work is not as simple as she claims, however, due to the variety of literary sources and critical approaches employed; the selected social, cultural, and gendered concerns addressed; and the chronological breadth encompassed, from ancient Greco-Roman and biblical times to modern adaptations of Shakespeare's works.

Maguire warns readers that her work is not necessarily geared toward philosophers or historicists, but either camp would find reasons to peruse her first chapter, “On Names.” Philosophers would be drawn to the cyclical and causal concerns of whether a generic personal name indicates identity or whether names merely reflect an identity that exists before the name. Maguire also raises the issue of the signifier's asserting control over the signified's identity. Adam names Eve, and Robinson Crusoe names (or renames) Friday and then renames himself Master. Language and naming are the verbalized signs of the conqueror, but there can also be a power associated with a lack of name or identity, as in the case of Odysseus's refusing to give his real name and thereby defeating the Cyclops. And in Ursula Le Guin's short story “She Unnames Them” (1985), an unnamed Eve subverts Adam's authority by returning her name to Adam and leaving him.

Historicists would be interested in the focus of the latter half of the first chapter as Maguire moves into a nice survey of early modern etymologies such as the inclusion of proper names in early dictionaries. Continuing this same interest, Maguire considers the conventions of early modern authors creating varied noms de plume for themselves, most often puns, anagrams, or Latinate variations of their names. Maguire effectively summarizes the conventions of naming children in early modern England. These names, whether chosen by parents or godparents, were the identifying mark of an individual denoting gender, status, faith, and sometimes character.

In the second chapter, Maguire focuses on patronymics and linguistic contradictions in Romeo and Juliet. The tragedy is one of failed language, miscommunications, and duplicitous meanings, but Maguire maintains that, more important, the tragedy is one of naming: the tragedy existed even before the play begins, due to the familial surnames; a Capulet and a Montague cannot find love together, nor can they attempt to reject predetermined identities and forge new and independent ones, but the lovers do try to create their own reciprocal language. Maguire believes “love … means learning to speak the language of the beloved” (68), and she deftly incorporates relevant examples from Brian Friel's play Translations (1980) about love blooming in Ireland between an Irish Gaelic-speaking woman and the British lieutenant tasked with renaming all local geographic areas. She moves from there into a superb reading of the Robert Le Page and Gordon McCall bilingual production of Romeo and Juliet (1989/90), staged at the height of controversy concerning the bilingual and bicultural tensions between Quebec and the rest of the Canadian provinces. The anglophone Montagues refuse to converse in French, while the francophone Capulets acquiesce to speaking English at times.

The next chapter reflects on the Helens that appear in several of Shakespeare's plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and Henry IV. The only real antecedent for the name was the controversial Helen of Troy. Here, Maguire moves into a feminist critique of the literary Helen as complicit adulteress or victim of rape. This is the longest chapter and feels sprawling, as Maguire often moves into digressions that last for pages. When she remains focused on the issues of the conflation and confusion of the terms “rape,” “abduction,” and “adultery” in early modern England, she creates sympathetic readings of the Helens of Midsummer and All's Well, chaste pursuers of their beloveds, that subvert any of the connotations of their shared name.

The strong feminist approach remains in Maguire's last two chapters. In her reading of The Taming of the Shrew, Maguire focuses on the surplus of names for Katherine Minola as creating anonymity; each variant of Kate's name (itself a diminutive assigned by her suitor) makes her true character unknowable and therefore anonymous. In contrast, Christopher Sly creates his own identity by insisting on his specific titles. Again, Maguire integrates a close study of a modern Shakespearean production of the play—in which the actor playing Sly also played seven other roles—demonstrating her stance on metatheatrics and the gaps between names and identity.

The final chapter focuses on The Comedy of Errors, specifically, Shakespeare's change of setting to Ephesus, a place of opposition, a secular trading hub, and the religious center for pagan and Christian beliefs. It is only in Ephesus—founded by the Amazons, refounded by Emperor Hadrian, and converted by Saint Paul—that Shakespeare could set this play that examines marriage as a commercial transaction and a spiritual union.

Maguire's work may focus on only a sampling of plays and even fewer names, but it is a nuanced and encyclopedic approach to etymology and onomastics that should engage any Shakespearean, regardless of theoretical preferences.