James is the teenage boy named in the story of Taylor Swift’s “august.”
The song presents the perspective of a female character who has a brief summer romance with James. He is already connected to Betty, and the relationship eventually ends when James returns to Betty. The narrator of “august” is left remembering a romance she had hoped would become something permanent.
This storyline forms one part of Folklore’s fictional teenage love triangle. “Cardigan” is told from Betty’s perspective, while “Betty” is told from James’s perspective. Listening to all three songs reveals overlapping events rather than three unrelated romances.
Swift did not give the narrator of “august” a formal name in the lyrics. She described imagining names such as Augusta or Augustine privately, which is why fans sometimes mistake one of those names for the character’s official identity. James, however, is explicitly named in the connected narrative.