As I was daydreaming at the beach today, I was thinking about last names in Jane Austen novels. I think that in the Middle Ages people started getting their surnames from their families profession(ex. Baker, Miller, Reeve).

So, I started thinking about P&P. Could the name "Gardiner" been some sort of sly way of Miss Austen's to show what social class they might have been in? Just by their last name, could the "superior" Bingley sisters have known that they probably weren't a very affluent family?

Ela