Today being Canada Day–which is roughly equivalent to the US Independence Day–it seems like a good opportunity to browse through the bilingual Canadian name bank and see what we can find–actually, more unusual–even exotic– names than you might expect. For instance, in the French colonies known as Acadia, there are such boys’ names as:
ALPHE
ELZEAR
EMELIEN
LEONIDE
PACIFIQUE (unisex)
THEDDY
and girls:
EMERISE
LITIAN
MELANEA
VIVINE
POPULARITY
Canada as a whole shares many of the names popular in the US. Across the country the top names are Ava and Ethan, and in some of the individual provinces other #1 names are Emily, Emma, Jacob, Logan, Ryan and William. More disparate choices in the national girls’ Top 20: Maya, Danica and Claire.
The more unique names appear, not surprisingly, in the French-speaking province of Quebec, where the Most Popular list includes:
GIRLS
ARINE
FLORENCE (#4)
LEA (#1)
ROSALIE (#3)
BOYS
CELEBRITIES
Some of the more interesting names of Canadian-born celebs:
ALANIS Morissette
AVRIL Lavigne
COCO Rocha
HAYDEN Christensen
MAVIS Gallant
MIA Kirshner
MORDECAI Richler
NATALIE Appleton
NATASHA Henstridge
NELLY Fertado
PLACE NAMES
And, finally, some Canadian place names that could conceivably morph into people names:
AIRDRIE
ALBERNI
AVOLA
CALGARY
CANSO
CASSAIR
CELISTA
KILLAM
LEDUC
LIARD
LIVELY
MAHONE
MANITOBA
SALLIQ
SAVONA
TRURO
YUKON
July 1st, 2009 at 10:50 am
I love some of those Acadian names! Emerise really intrigues me.