[1] George Berkeley, baptized 26 October 1601 at Low Leyton, Essex, was the only surviving son of Sir Thomas Berkeley (11 July 1575 – 22 November 1611) and Elizabeth Carey, daughter and sole heir of George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon.
He was the paternal grandson of Henry Berkeley, 7th Baron Berkeley (d. 26 November 1613), by his first wife, Katherine Howard (d. 7 April 1596), third daughter of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Frances de Vere, daughter of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford and Elizabeth Trussell.
[2] Berkeley's childhood was spent in Warwickshire, where he was a pupil of the translator, Philemon Holland of Coventry, and of Henry Ashwood.
His maternal grandfather had backed the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the acting company of William Shakespeare.
In his own era, however, in the dedications of contemporaneous works such as The Duchess of Malfi, he is identified as George Harding.