Betty is the name of James’s former lover in Taylor Swift’s “august” story.
The song is part of a three-track narrative on Folklore involving Betty, James, and an unnamed girl who spends a summer with James. “august” tells the story from the summer girl’s perspective, while “cardigan” is associated with Betty and “betty” presents James’s viewpoint.
James is already connected to Betty when the summer romance begins. He eventually abandons the unnamed narrator and returns to Betty, leaving the summer relationship as a brief, unfulfilled episode. The connected songs are designed to show how different characters understand the same complicated situation.
Listeners sometimes call the narrator of “august” Augustine or Augusta because Swift said she imagined those names privately. However, those names refer to the unnamed summer narrator, not James’s former lover. Betty is the clearly established name in the triangle.