This seems like such a trivial subject, but I've often wondered about it. I live in Washington (the state not DC) and I've always called it a purse as do my friends. I know someone who grew up in the Boston area and she calls it a pocketbook. I've never heard anyone say handbag, but I've seen it used in ads for department stores. I suspect these words are regional. Any ideas?
I grew up in New York state, and my mother's everyday, workhorse carryall was always a pocketbook. On formal occasions she would carry her bare essentials in a tiny purse. I think you're right: handbag is merchantspeak. My wife (in Alaska) carries her stuff in the pockets of her jeans. On formal occasions, she says to me, "Here, carry this for me." She does carry what she calls "my bag," but that functions more as a briefcase than as a purse, and doesn't always come home with her. Come to think of it, my grandmother called her purse/pocketbook "my bag."
I don't know if one instance in Boston and one in small-town New York constitute regional usage, but it gives you two data points in the Northeast!
Peter
My wife uses "bag" unless it is a small evening "purse." As I was growing up in Philadelphia, I remember "pocketbook" was very common, but my mother probably used "bag" more. She would use "purse" for the small wallet-like thing she put in her "bag."
I'm from Massachusetts, people I know use "purse," "bag," and occasionally "pocketbook." You wouldn't really hear a young person say "pocketbook" though.
Also, my grandmother is from Nova Scotia and I always laugh when she calls her wallet her "billfold" such a literal term.
I believe handbag is more British usage, purse more North American. Much was (and since the film with Meryl Streep is once again) made of Mrs Thatcher's forceful use of her handbag, and I've never seen it referred to a purse in that context.
Then there is the famous "capacious" handbag in which Ernest/Jack in the Importance of Being Ernest was allegedly found in a railway station cloakroom. The way Aunt Augusta repeats "in a handbag" with a combination of scorn, astonishment and condescension when she hears of this unfortunate origin of the foundling is a classic. I can't imagine pronouncing the monosyllabic "purse" or "bag" with anything approaching that tone of voice (see the film version with Dame Edith Evans playing Lady Bracknell/Aunt Augusta!)