I think there's as much relevance in Dickens today as you want there to be, frankly. The scene in which the Ghost of Christmas Present unfurls his cloak to reveal two, animal-like children whose names are "Ignorance" and "Want" is still telling today. As is his famous phrase, "Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons", etc. Times may change but attitudes can slip down generations.

The point I was making in my original post is that Dickens, although he wrote about the inequalities in society, never campaigned for a change to the structure of society itself. He accepted the status quo - just hoped that people would be personally nicer! Hence the hidden (or even overt) agenda in the naming of characters. If you were christened Abel Magwitch, or Uriah Heep or Wackford Squeers or Arthur Gride, that was it! Your character - your place in society - was delineated from the start.