Le Duc et Duchesse de quelque chose and le Baron et Baronesse de comme çi comme ça have announced their children and grandchildren’s 2010 arrivals in Paris’ Le Figaro.
Trends among the upper echelons in France lean by and large toward reviving ancient esoteric Greek monikers. This also harkens back to the 18th century, when their titles still held sway under the monarchy. Coincidence? I think not. There are some real beauties to behold, and some that may not translate too easily.
One family introduced their brood en masse:
Anaïs, Guillaume, Anne-Sophie, Héloïse, Thibault et Clémentine, Séverine, Anne-France, Matthieu, Arnaud, Louis et Alexandre, Grégoire, Eulalie, Mériadec, Maguelonne, Apolline et Donatienne, Agathe, Bérénice, Charlotte, Geoffroy et Théodore, Lise, Candice et Valentine, Maÿlis, Cyprien, Amycie et Ombelyne
Be still my heart.
I’ve broken it down to make it more manageable. Below is part 1 of 4, all the boys listed A through L plus a few brothers for good measure. Stay tuned for M-Z and les petites filles.
Achille x2
Adrien
Albéric
Alexandre x3
Alphonse
Andrea
Antoine x3
Antonin
Arthur x5
Augustin x2
Aurélien x2
Axel
Balthazar
Baptiste
Camille
Carl
Casimir
César
Cioran
Côme
Constantin
Cyriac
Diego
Dimitri
Eliott
Eloi
Emile
Enguerrand
Enzo
Erwan
Felibert
Ferdinand
Florent
Gabriel
Gaspard x2
Gaston
Gontran
Grégoire x3
Gustave
Guy
Hadrien
Hector x2
Henri
Henry
Hugo
Jacques
Jean
Joseph
Julien
Leonardo
Léopold x3
Louis
Lumir
Illustration: Too Proud a Snail, by French artist Eric Battut
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Such sublime names – I’m in heaven!!! Such a treat to see some names I’ve never seen before – Albéric, Amicie, Cléophée, Cyriac, Eloi and Lumir for example.
My absolute favourites (though it seems a crime to eliminate any of them from a favourites list!) include:
Augustin
Aurélien
Casimir
César
Ferdinand
Florent
Gabriel
Hugo
I cannot wait to see the second part, plus the girl’s list! Please don’t keep us waiting too long, Elisabeth!!
Sorry Siobhán, Cléophée is a girl. Looks like that got past me when I was dividing up the list. Andrea and Camille are most definitely boys though, in case anybody wonders.
Isn’t it fun to discover NEW names? I promise not to keep you in suspense for parts II-IV.
Camille is a BOY? Is this usually a boy’s name in France?
Is Valentine a boy? I have a friend who named her newborn son last week Valentine. It has thrown many of her New Zealand friends into confusion, as it is so uncommon here – although Valentina is popular for girls.
I love so many of the boys names you listed. In particular, Augustin, Aurélien, Balthazar, Casimir, Constantin, Florent, Gabriel and Hugo.
Thanks for this inspiring list – I usually find boys’ names so dull, and just read the girls’ lists! (Awful I know, but true!)
Camille was originally a male name, it reverted to being primarily female in the 19th-century. Thankfully, it looks like it is reverting back to the boys.
Amicie/Amycie is a female name. I went to school with an Amicie, I much prefer that spelling to Amycie, which looks trendy to me.
In France, Valentine is a female name, its masculine form is Valentin.
From this list, I adore these:
Achille
Albéric
Augustin
Axel
Balthazar
Casimir
Côme
Constantin
Cyriac
Enzo-currently very trendy in France
Felibert
Florent
Gabriel
Gontran-I posted about him in my blog a few weeks ago
Gustave
Guy
Hector
Hugo
Jacques
Jean
Sebastiane, Duly noted on Amicie! I thought I transferred that one too. Now it’s done.
I’m off to check out your Gontran post. It was new to me.
Also on Valentine/Valentin, they are not pronounced the same in French. -Ine is “een”, -In has a silent N, a sound that doesn’t exist in English.
I also know a boy named Valentine, who is certainly not French. He’s American. The Dutch have Valentijn.
Jane, in France there are a couple of names that are strictly unissex (called “prénoms epicènes”) because the male and female French form of the name is the same:
- Camille (Camilla/Camillus in English)
- Claude (Claudia/Claudius)
- Dominique (Dominic/Dominica
- Maxime (Maxima/Maximus)
- Dorothée
- Elisée
I love how brave the French are with their names. Achille is one of my personal favourites.
From my understanding, Camille did not start off as an epicene. Marie is also often used on males, but in conjunction with a male name.
Valentine is male in English. Its just the way the masculine forms and feminine forms evolved in both languages. The fact that Valentine has always been feminine in French and masculine in English, is purely coincidental. In the French case, Valentine would be the equivalent of Valentina. French names are usually feminized by adding an E on the end, and in English, masculine Latin names were usually anglicized by replacing the -us with an E. Valentine, Augustine, Lawrence are all examples.
There are plenty of epicènes that have fallen out of use! In Medieval times Philippe was used for women also, while Anne was also commonly used on men. But Camille is totally unissex in French, even if it started off being more used in men (for instance, in roman mythology, Camilla is called Camille in French).