French names
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This article describes the conventions for using people's names in France, including the norms of custom and practice, as well as the legal aspects.
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[edit] Styles and forms of address
[edit] Madame, Mademoiselle, Monsieur
In normal polite usage, a person's name is preceded by a title:
- Monsieur (for males; pronounced meciœu /məsjø/; plural: Messieurs pronounced messiœu /mesjø/; abbreviation: M. or Mr; plural: MM. or Mrs. The latter forms are frowned on by purists, but are extremely common, and figure in the earliest dictionaries). Etymologically, Monsieur means "my Lord".
- Madame (for married, divorced or widowed females; plural: Mesdames; abbreviation: Mme; plural: Mmes). Etymologically, this means "my Lady".
- Mademoiselle (for unmarried females; pronounced mamzelle /mamzɛl/; plural: Mesdemoiselles pronounced mesdamzelles /medamzɛl/; abbreviation: Mlle ou Mle; plural: Mlles ou Mles). Etymologically, this means "my Damsel". During the Ancien Régime, laywomen were always called "Mademoiselle", even when married, but this usage disappeared after the French Revolution. This form of address is now tending to disappear altogether in favour of "Madame"; one tendency is to call all young-looking females Mademoiselle, and older females Madame. Actresses are usually styled Mademoiselle in film or theatre credits, regardless of their age or personal situation, you would thus read Mademoiselle Deneuve est habillée par Soandso
A traditional address is Mesdames, Mesdemoiselles, Messieurs — note the order of words, representing decreasing degrees of respect. A less formal variant is Messieurs-Dames.
It is normally impolite to address people by their first name unless one is a family member, a friend or a work colleague. Also, contrary to English or German usage, it is somewhat impolite to address someone as Monsieur X: a mere Monsieur is in order, when not referring to the person as a third party. However, an excessive usage of Monsieur or Madame may indicate irony, implying that the person addressed or referred to is pompous.
Monsieur/Madame first-name last-name is by far the most polite, but mostly used on more solemn occasions. Monsieur/Madame last-name or first-name last-name is polite and used in normal formal occasions, as well as in the formal quality press (Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique, for example). By contrast, in colloquial usage the last names of personalities are used alone. Formally, a married or widowed woman can be called by the first name of her husband (Madame (first name of husband) last-name or Madame veuve (first name of husband) last-name), although this is now definitely out-of-fashion.
In the workplace or in academic establishments, particularly in a male-dominated environment, it is quite common to refer to male employees by their last name only, but to use Madame or Mademoiselle before the names of female employees.
[edit] Officials
Officials acting in their official capacity are addressed by their rank or title; thus, the President of the French Republic is addressed as Monsieur le Président. If someone says, Monsieur Chirac, this implies that Jacques Chirac is being referred to as a private person, not in his official capacity. However, the distinction may be blurred in journalistic writing or speech. Note that Monsieur le Président can refer to any president, be it the president of the National Assembly, the presiding judge (chief justice) of a court, or even the president of a private nonprofit association; in case of possible confusion, one would add what the person addressed is president of. As another example, in a formal workplace setting, a person of a lower rank would call a director Monsieur le Directeur, though this is uncommon nowadays in spoken usage.
In previous times, the names of certain functions (Ministre — minister, préfet etc.) were exclusively masculine; thus, one spoke of Madame le Ministre. The feminine form of certain names, such as présidente or préfète, was applied to the wife of the official. However, under the administration of Lionel Jospin, official terminology was changed, despite protests from the Académie française, the body responsible for setting rules on the use of the French language. Now, the feminine term Madame la Ministre is considered acceptable, and is the form used in official government publications.
The law professions bear the style of Maître abbreviation : Me. This style comes from the academic degree of maître en droit ("master of law"). It is used by both men and women, but only when they act in their professional capacity. With the exception of the physicians the title of docteur is seldom used.
[edit] Military
See also Ranks in the French Navy and Ranks in the French Army
Military officers are addressed by their rank (not "monsieur"). Male officers of the Army and the Air Force are addressed as Mon <rank> by inferior ranks and deferential civilians. This usage is said not to be the possessive pronoun "mon", but an abbreviation of "monsieur". However, women do not say "mon"; instead they use "Général" rather than "mon Général".
As a punishment by Napoléon Bonaparte, Navy officers have not been addressed as "mon" since the Battle of Trafalgar. Confusingly, the title used does not always match the rank. "Lieutenant" is the form of address for an enseigne de vaisseau, "capitaine" for a lieutenant de vaisseau and "commandant" for a capitaine de corvette, frégate or vaisseau.
In everyday written contexts, ranks are abbreviated.
[edit] Given names
French people have one, two or more given names. Only one of them, almost always the first, is used in daily life; the others are solely for official documents, such as birth, death and marriage certificates. Thus, one always speaks of Jacques Chirac and never of Jacques René Chirac; and Henri Philippe Pétain is always referred to as Philippe Pétain (or Marshal Pétain), because Philippe was the given name that he used in daily life. Middle initials are not used. For 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 honour 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 given names are Jean (John), Jacques (James), Michel (Michael) or even Jean-Baptiste(John-the-Baptist) for males, Marie (Mary), Jeanne (Jean) or Julie (Julie) for females. In certain regions such as Brittany or Corsica, more local names (usually of local saints) are often, but not always used (in Brittany, for instance, male Corentin or female Corentine; in Corsica, Dominique (suitable both for males and females). However, people from immigrant communities often choose names from their own culture. Furthermore, in recent decades it has become commonplace to use certain foreign first names, such as Kevin, Enzo or Anthony for males; for females, Jessica, Jennifer, Karine or Sonia.
The prevalence of given names follows 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 or third given names (middle names).
Almost all traditional given names are gender-specific. However, a few given names, such as Dominique (see above, Corsica - completely neutral), Claude (male-biaised) and Camille (female-biased), are given to both males and females; in medieval times, a woman was often named Philippe (Phillipa), now a man-exclusive name (Phillip). Compound given names, such as Jean-Luc, Jean-Paul, or Anne-Sophie are not uncommon. These are not considered to be two separate given names.
It is possible that the second part of a compound name is one normally used by the opposite sex. However, 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. This was not always the case in the past, and some Frenchmen would have Marie or Anne as first name. Anne du Bourg is an example.
First names are chosen by the child's parents. There are no legal a priori constraints on the choice of names. It was not always like that. The choice of given names, originally limited by the tradition of naming children after a small number of popular saints, was restricted by law at the end of he 18th century. Officially, only names figuring on a calendar or names of illustrious Frenchmen/women of the past could be accepted. Much later in 1966, a new law admitted in a limited number of mythological, regional or foreign names, substantives (Olive, Violette), diminutives and alternative spelling. Only in 1993 were French parents set free to name their child without constraint.[1] 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 to protect their own family name, the registrar may refer the matter to the local prosecutor, who may choose 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.
To change a given name, a request can be made before a court (juge des affaires familiales).
[edit] Last names
A child's last name, until recently, was inherited from the father unless the father was unknown, in which case it was inherited from the mother. A recent law allowed couples to choose, for all their children, which name they would use, or opt for the use of a double-barrelled name, separated by a hyphen.
The ratio of the nulber of last names to the population is high in France, due to the fact that most surnames had many othographic and dialectal variants (more than 40 for some) which where registered as separate names around 1880 when “family vital records booklets” where issued. According to the French Institute for Statistics INSEE, more than 1,300,000 surnames have been registered in the country between 1891 and 1990, but about 200,000 disappeared meanwhile (mainly orthographic variants). It is believed that the number of last names at any time since 1990 hovers between 1,200,000 and 800,000. According to different estimations, 50 to 80 percent of French citizens would be the bearers of a « rare » surname (less than 50 bearers alive at the census time).
[edit] Origins
Many French last names originate from working-class occupations, or place names, at the time when systematic birth registries 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 archetypal "ordinary" surname, thus Jean Dupont is the name of the standard ordinary person, rather like John Smith in the UK and John Doe in the USA.
If both parents are unknown, the birth registrar chooses a common given name, often the name of the saint for the day the child was found, to be used as the child's last name. This explains to some extent the fact that many people have Michel or Martin as a last name, since a number of the saints of the calendar bear that name. Martin is actually France's most common surname; it is thus no surprise that there exist several people of varying degrees of celebrity 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.
[edit] Particles
Some French last names include the word de ("of") or du (contraction for de and le = "of the"). This is known as a particule. The particule generally indicates some land or feudal origin, but this is not always the case. The name de Gaulle, for example, is not a traditional French name with a particule, but a Flemish name evolved from a form of "De Walle" meaning "the wall".
A popular misconception is that a particule always indicates membership of 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. An example from current political life is Dominique de Villepin. Former president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's father had his surname legally changed from "Giscard" to "Giscard d'Estaing" in 1922, claiming the name of a family line extinct since the French Revolution.
Adding a particule was one way for people of non-noble origins to pretend they were nobles. In the 19th century wealthy laymen buying nobility titles were derisively called Monsieur de Puispeu, a pun on depuis peu meaning "since recently". Similarly, during the French Revolution, when being associated with the nobility was unfashionable and even risky, some people dropped the de from their name, or omitted the mention of their feudal titles (see image).
In some cases, names with particules are made of a normal family name and the name of an estate (or even of several estates). Thus, Dominique de Villepin is Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin; Hélie de Saint-Marc is Hélie Denoix de Saint Marc (in both cases, omitting second or other given names). As in these examples, most people with such long family names shorten their name for common use by keeping only the first estate name or, in some cases, only the family name. Whether the family name or the estate name is used for the shortened form depends on a variety of factors: how people feel bearing a particule (people may for instance dislike the connotations of nobility that the particule entails; on the other hand, they may enjoy the impression of nobility), tradition, etc. For instance, one never refers to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing as "d'Estaing", probably because his particule is a recent addition to the family surname by his father.
Traditionally, the particule de is omitted 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 letter); the same applies for Gérard de la Martinière, who would be called La Martinière. Similarly, Philippe de Villiers talks about the votes he receives as le vote Villiers. However, this usage is now losing ground to a more egalitarian treatment of surnames; it is, for instance, commonplace to hear people talking of De Villiers.
Note that English language medial capital spellings such as DeVilliers are never used in France
[edit] Changes of names
Contrary to a popular misconception, and also contrary to usage in some other countries, French women do not legally 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. However, if they do, they may retain the use of this name, depending on circumstances, even after a divorce. In some cases, the wife, or even both spouses, choose to adopt a double-barrelled surname made from joining the surnames of both partners.
This distinction is important, because many official documents use the maiden name of the person.
Several decades ago, it was still common for wives to be called Madame followed by the name of their husband, including the husband's first name. This implied that the wife was an accessory to her husband in social relationships. The women's liberation movement has resulted in this usage becoming infrequent.
People may also choose to use other names in daily usage, as long as they are not impersonating others, and as long as their usage name is socially accepted. One example of this is the custom of actors or singers to 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; for example, the singer Patrick Bruel changed his name from Benguigui.
Changing one's last name is quite complex. Such changes have to be made official by a décret of the Prime Minister. Requests for such changes must be justified 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 unfavourable connotations.
[edit] references
[edit] See also
- (French) List of commonplace French given names at the French Wikipedia
[edit] References
- (French) French Republic, Code Civil, Book I Title II Chapter II
- (French) Imprimerie Nationale, Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'Imprimerie nationale, ISBN 2-7433-0482-0
[edit] External Links
- French names meaning An extensive resource of French given names and their meanings.
