James is the 17-year-old boy in Taylor Swift’s fictional “august” story.
The song is part of Folklore’s interconnected love-triangle narrative involving James, Betty, and an unnamed girl often associated with the name Augustine. In “august,” the girl recalls a brief summer relationship with James, who is already connected to Betty.
James is not presented as a real person from Swift’s biography. Folklore deliberately uses imagined characters and story arcs, allowing Swift to write from perspectives different from her own and to explore the emotional ambiguity of teenage relationships.
A common mix-up is identifying Augustine as the boy. Augustine is the name commonly used for the narrator of “august,” while James is the boy whose relationship with her is remembered in the song.