French name

This article describes both the customary and legal aspects of the names of people (i.e. given and last names) in France.

Given names

French people are given one, two or more given names, in sequence. Only one of them (almost always the first) is used in daily life; the other ones are solely for official documents (such as birth, death and marriage certificates), where they serve disambiguation purposes. Thus, one always speaks of Jacques Chirac and never of Jacques René Chirac. Middle initials are not used; thus, as an example, while English-speaking scientific publications may cite Claude Allègre as Claude J. Allègre, this is never done in France. Typically, second and further given names may be somewhat old-fashioned, given in honor of the child's grandparents etc., though such practice has now become less common.

Traditionally, most people were given names from the Roman Catholic calendar of saints. Common such last names are Jean (John), Jacques (James), Michel (Michael) for males, Marie (Mary) for females. However, people from immigrant communities often choose names from their own culture. Furthermore, in the recent decades it has become commonplace to use certain foreign first names, such as William or Kevin.

The prevalence of given names seem to follow some trends, with some names being popular in some years, and some considered definitely out-of-fashion. As an example, few children born since 1970 would bear the name Germaine, which is generally associated with the idea of an elderly lady — however, as noted above, such old-fashioned names are frequently used as second, third etc. given names (middle names).

Almost all traditional given names are gender-specific. A few given names such as Dominique and Claude are for both males and females. Compound given names, such as Jean-Luc, Jean-Paul, or Anne-Sophie are not uncommon. These are not considered as two separate given names. It is possible that the components are traditionally used for opposite sexes, in which case the gender of the compound is determined by the first component. Thus, Marie-George Buffet has a female given name. In particular, there exist male given names ending in Marie, as in Jean-Marie or Bernard-Marie.

First names are chosen by the child's parents. There are no legal a priori constraints on the choice of names. However, if the birth registrar thinks that the chosen names (alone or in association with the last name) may be detrimental to the child's interests, or to the right of other families of protecting their own family name, the registrar has to refer the matter to the local prosecutor, which may chose to refer the matter to the local court. The court may then refuse the chosen names. Such refusals are rare and mostly concern given names that may expose the child to mockery.

One may request the change of one's given name(s) by a request before a court (juge des affaires familiales).

Last names

A child's last name, previously, was inherited from the father unless the father was unknown, in which case it was inherited from the mother. A recent law enabled couples to choose, for the whole of their children, which name they would use, or opt for the use of a compound name (separated by double hyphens).

Origins

Many French last names originate from working-class occupations, or peasant place names, at the time when systematic birth registrars were put in place. Thus, many people are called Charpentier or Carpentier ("carpenter"), Boulanger ("baker"), Dufour ("of the oven"), Dumoulin ("of the mill"), Dupont ("of the bridge"). Dupont is considered France's canonical "ordinary" surname, thus Jean Dupont is the canonical ordinary person.

In case both parents are unknown, the birth registrar choses usual given names, the last of which is used as a last name. This explains to some extent the fact that many people have Michel or Martin as a last name. Martin is actually France's most common surname; it is thus no surprise that there exist several (semi-)famous people called Jacques Martin.

Many last names betray a regional origin:

• Germanic last names (Walker, Kauffmann, Reutenauer...) often indicate an origin in Alsace or Lorraine.
• Names in Le XXX (Le Guen, Le Pen, Le Moüel) may indicate a Breton origin (see for instance Jean-Marie Le Pen)
• Names in -oz (Chavanoz...) may indicate a Savoyard origin.

Particles

Some French last names have de ("of") or du (contraction for de and le = "of the") in their name. This is known as a particule. The particule indicates generally some land or feudal origin.

The name De Gaulle is not a traditional French name with a particule, but a Belgian name, and does not fit into the scheme described in this section.

A popular misconception is that a particule necessarily indicates membership in the former nobility. Almost all nobility titles were of the form <title> <particule> <name of the land>: for instance, Louis, duc d'Orléans ("Louis, duke of Orléans"), or simply Louis d'Orléans. However, many non-noble people also have particules in their names, simply because they indicate some geographic origin or property; trying to add a particule was also one objective of people of non-noble origins who wanted to pretend they were nobles. As examples, neither Dominique de Villepin nor Valéry Giscard d'Estaing are nobles.

In some cases, names with particules are made of a normal family name and the name of a land (or even of several lands). Thus, Dominique de Villepin is Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin; Hélie de Saint-Marc is Hélie Denoix de Saint Marc (in both cases, omitting second etc. given names). As seen from this example, in most cases, people with such long family names shorten their name for common use by keeping only the first land name (and, more rarely, only the family name).

Traditionally, one omits the particule de when citing the name of a person without a preceding given name, title (baron, duc etc.), job description (général, colonel, etc.) or polite address (monsieur, madame, mademoiselle). Thus, one would say Monsieur de la Vieuville, but if calling him familiarily by his last name only, La Vieuville (note the initial capital); ditto for Gérard de la Martinière, which one would call La Martinière. Similarily, Philippe de Villiers talks about the votes he receives as le vote Villiers. However, this usage is now losing ground to equalitarian treatment of surnames; it is, for instance, commonplace to hear people talking of De Villiers.

Note that American camel case spellings such as DeVilliers are never used in France.

Changes of names

Contrary to a popular misconception, and also contrary to usage in some other countries, French women do not change names when they marry. However, it is customary that they take their husband's name as a "usage name"; this is not a legal obligation and not all women decide to do so. If they do so, depending on circumstances, they may retain the use of this name even after a divorce. In some cases, the wife, or even both spouses, choose to carry a compound usage surname made from joining the surname of both partners.

Several decades ago, it was still frequent that wives could be called Madame followed by the name of their husband, including the husband's first name. This naturally implied that the wife was a kind of acessory to her husband in social relationships. Since woman's liberation, such namings are now infrequent.

This distinction is important, because many official documents are established primarily using the real surname of the person ("maiden name").

People may also choose to use other names in daily usage, as long as they are not impersonating others... and as long as they get their usage name socially accepted. An example is actors or singers, which use a stage name. However, identity documents and other official documents will only bear the "real name" of the person. In some cases, people finally change their real name to their stage name; such was for instance the name of singer Patrick Bruel (born Benguigui).

Changing one's real last name is a bit complex. Such changes have to be made official by a décret of the Prime Minister. Requests for such changes must be motivated by some legitimate interest: for instance, changing from a foreign name difficult to pronounce in French to a simpler name, or changing from a name with disfavourable connotations.

See also

• List of commonplace French given names

References

• Template:Fr icon Code Civil, Book I Title II Chapter II