The name of the poem’s protagonist carries symbolic weight. The name Miniver Cheevy has never been in widespread use for boys, which relates to Cheevy's being out of sync with the times. He sees himself as an anachronism.
The name "Miniver Cheevy" also sounds like the phrase "minimum achiever," which portrays him as an outcast. This represents the poet himself, who (as the son of a wealthy New England merchant) was destined for a career in business or science. Instead, Robinson dedicated himself to writing poetry and spent years drifting from job to job and using alcohol to cope. It was not until later that the literary taste of his times fell in sync with his work.
Robinson himself detested his name, calling it "a hell of a name for a poet" (Donaldson 4). It took months for his parents to choose a name, which they eventually did by drawing a slip of paper from a hat. The name that came out read "Edwin," and the woman whose idea it was to choose the name this way came from Arlington, Massachusetts. Hence the "hell of a name": Edwin Arlington Robinson, which likely influenced the poet's process for choosing the names of the characters in his poems.
