Are French Baby Names Scrambling Your Eggs?
Looking for baby names that are somehow familiar but with a little flair, très chic and a bit unique? Ah, c’est magnifique. Are you feeling French today?
"I'm Special la la la". Butterfield and Robinson cover by Viva & Co., Toronto, Ontario.
My friend, Linda, works as a consultant in Ottawa, Canada’s buttoned-up seat of government where French is spoken just as readily as English … except Linda doesn’t speak French. Recently, she started a stint at a government agency. “I’m surrounded by French people,” she said in an email. “It sounds like birds chirping and ducks quacking to me (lots of la la la er la er and quack quack quack).” It was a classic comment from Linda whose funny observations always crack me up.
I, on the other hand, happily subjected myself to four years of high school French eons ago. Oui, oui. I love everything French. Aside from the language, I adore the food, especially rich cream sauces (béchamel and hollandaise) and stinky cheeses. I’m addicted to their pastries and almost named my business “Patachou,” a play on “pâte à choux” or pastry, simply because I liked its playful sound. Sad to say, my faded knowledge of the language now only allows me to read gourmet menus and order fancy wines en français, merci beaucoup.
It’s lucky for me, then, that I have a French middle name, Angelique. Go figure. Asian girl that I am, I asked my parents what had inspired it, hoping for some connection to an exotic-great-aunt-princess from the Loire in the sixteenth century. I’d even settle for an au pair version à la “The King and I” but no such luck. “Maybe there was something on the radio that day” was their best offer.
Coming from a large family where the naming tradition is a mile long, my parents had more important preoccupations that agonizing over baby names. Fortunately, my other siblings don’t mind their forgettable names also. I particularly like my younger sister’s middle name, Salome,* for the enfant terrible (terrible child) it conjures beside which the pius Angelique seems, well, bland. But I’m not complaining. “La la la,” as Linda says.
French names are lyrical, and have a finesse and sophistication that I like. If you’re thinking of giving your baby a little French flair, here are some of my favorite French names du jour:
Illustrations by Frank Viva, Viva & Co., Toronto.
French Baby Boy Names
Christophe (Christopher), Émile, Étienne (Steve), Julien, Laurent (Laurence), Patrice (Patrick), Rémy, Sébastien, Stéphane (Stephen), Thierry (Terry)
French Baby Girl Names
Adèle, Amélie (Amelia), Anastasie, Camille, Constance, Danielle, Isabelle, Simone, Thérèse
Many names are hyphenated such as Jean-Pierre, Marie-Élise, Jacque-Henri, and many masculine names become feminine with the addition of the suffix -e, -ette or -ine like Jacques and Jacqueline, Paul and Paulette, Jean and Jeanne.
You have to admit, these names sound like they belong to a movie, don’t they? And those accents … Madame, a little dijon on the side? If French isn’t your heritage and you’re not sure about this, just think of my parents. Ah, what’s a little je ne sais quoi? Ooh la la. Your baby will love it.
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