French Names: What’s chic now?

These are gorgeous! But I’m still not sold on Prune …

Interesting list but some of the names would be problematic with an American or other English accent. I’m looking at you Marine and Philippine.

Sixtine? No. But I’m in love with the rest of the list! Although, where’s Sylvie?

This is like 80% of my favorite names! I love French names… so nice to see Anouk, Elodie, Manon, Axelle, Anais, Emmanuelle etc on the chic list.
Not sold on Prune either!

I know, I know on Prune — it will never make it here. But it actually means Plum, which is adorable! And Sylvie is gorgeous if not popular now — though eternally chic.

I really love Delphine

Great list!! I LOVE:

Girls

Agathe
Anais
Anouk
Apolline
Aurelie
Capucine
Celine
Clemence
Coralie
Eugenie
Flore
Ines
Leona
Lucile
Maeva
Mathilde
Ninon
Philippine

Boys

Achille
Clement
Clovis
Ilan
Maxence
Romain
Thibault

My favorites:

Girls – Anais, Manon, Margot

Boys – Gabriel, Ilan, Leandre

What beauties! I love French names. If only they went better with my clunky last name.

I know a Margot, an Elodie, and a Clemence (inspired by Clemence Poesy). I have to give a thumbs down to Prune, Romane, and Sixtine, but I’d be delighted to meet babies with names from the rest of the list.

My favorites are Clement and Eulalie.

Yay for Amandine and Apolline!

My daughter’s middle is Lucienne, which I understand is neither extremely fashionable in France nor unfashionable. Regardless, I love it.

Just read this amusing article about French First Lady Carla Bruni, who’s about to deliver a baby: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/carla-bruni-smoke-drink-pregnant_n_975403.html

Didn’t realize she had a 10-year-old son named Aurelien, which would have been a great one for the list!

I really like Eugenie, and have for a while, but my boyfriend considers it unusable because of how much it sounds like Eugenics.

This entire list is amazing! Valo June could have so easily ended up being a Francoise, and Anouk was considered for Nona, as well. Claude, Clement and Clovis are three of my all time favorite boy’s names. There isn’t one name here that isn’t fantastic and begging to be used!

Aww I adore the name Margot! Only have one girl though (Stella), and we probably wont get a chance to use it! I’m not too thrilled with the boy’s names though…I come from a French-Cajun background and have two great names to add: Lucien (a family name for me) and Remy (my youngest son). So adorable!

My next child will be Eulalie, girl or boy. KIDDING! I seriously LOVE that name though and hope our next baby is a girl so that I have the opportunity to bestow it on someone! There are so many gorgeous French names.

Love Bastien for a boy. I always loved Sebastien but my husband only likes this shortened variant. Also reminds me of the Never Ending Story. As for the girls list, very sweet, pretty names. I love Aurelie but – orally? Oh really? Just doesn’t seem like it would translate well.

My fave french name is actually a quebecois name: Rejeanne (pronounced ray-zhann, but most you can hope for in U.S. is ray-zheen). It’s considered an old lady name in Quebec but I think it is fresh and pretty. Other girl names I wish would have been on this list are Raphaelle and Eugenee (pronounced like ew-zhuh-nay, not like you-jeen). Also missing from the boy list is Lucien and Raoul. I’d highly advise against using Malo in the U.S. as it means “bad” in spanish.

I guess I’m the first French blogger leaving a comment there

I have nothing to say, your list is perfect, which is not always the case on anglophone name blogs. I am so sick of seeing people refer to Colette or Nicole or Linette as “lovely and so chic French names”. Seriously, those are dated – I only know seventy-year-old ladies named Colette. I agree that Pierre and Jean are tiresome but at least they ARE basic French names, and that are still used nowadays, contrary to Odette or Josiane.
The list is great, the exception would be Claude, which belongs with Annette and Armande РFran̤oise, as well, is a bit dated.

I would add:

Girls:
Aliénor
Alix
Amélie
Aube (which means Dawn)
Augustine
Aure
Automne (French for Autumn)
Arielle
Axelle
Blanche
Brume (Mist)
Brune (dark-haired. Btw, I saw on the website that Brunette was the French for Bruna. It’s definitely Brune – I’ve never heard of a Brunette).
Camille
Cassandre (French for Cassandra)
Cassiopée (French for Cassiopeia)
Clémentine
Colombe (which means Dove)
Constance (literally Constancy)
Dauphine (an alternative to Delphine, means the same thing)
Dune (same meaning)
Églantine (wild rose)
Fleur (literally Flower)
Florine
Hermance
Hortense
Iseult (French for Isolde)
Juliette
Lorraine
Madeleine
Mahault
Margaux
Marie
Neige (literally Snow)
Opale
Opaline
Ophélie
Perle (Pearl)
Perrine
Pervenche (meaning Periwinkle)
Romance (a romantic alternative to Romane)
Roxane
Salomé
Sybille
Théoxane
Venise (Venice in French)
Violette

Boys:
Alexis (an alternative to Alexander)
Antonin
Arnaud
Augustin
Aurélien
Auxence
Axel
Azur
Barthélémy (French for Bartholomew)
Basile (French for Basil)
Cassien
Célestin
Colin
Colomban
Côme
Constantin
Damien
Edgar
Edouard
Emile
Emilien
Faustin
Flavien
Florian (more than Florin, which was the currency in Amsterdam a few centuries ago)
Florent
Florentin
Gaston
Guillaume (a classic, French for William)
Guillhem (an Southern version of Guillaume, French for Willem)
Gustave
Julien
Lancelot
Laurent
Laurier (literally, Laurel)
Léopold
Louis
Loup (French for wolf)
Lysandre
Marius
Matthias
Matthieu
Maxandre
Maximilien
Olivier
Paul
Raphaël
Rimbaud
Romarin (French for rosemary)
Théandre
Théophile
Thybalt
Valérien
Victorien
Zadig
Zéphyrien

StellaMaris: What fantastic additions! Thanks!

Though initially Germanic as Alberic, I would count Aubrey, which is the Norman French version and is now wildly popular in the US.

I know the pronunciation is different, and when pronounced correctly it’s a lovely sound, but Anais in America will never make it. It’s too close to anus. I know others love it, but I could never do that to a little girl.

I’m not really digging the guys names, but Coline, Coralie, Aurelie, Celine, Elodie, and Maeva are among my favs on the girls’list.

I have to disagree about Anais not making it in America. It is one of the top used names on the above NB list in the US. It has been in the top 1000 for the past several years and several years around the year 2000 when musician Noel Gallagher used the name.

More people in the USA named their child Anais last year than Louise, Margot, Leona and pretty much every other name on this list, except Celine and Lucile ( but Lucille with 2 LL’s). I’m not saying it will be a top 100 name, but I think more and more people are familiar with how to pronounce it correctly.

I’m a numbers person so you intrigued me, bluedahlia. I looked up the social security info and discovered the following: It hasn’t been in the top 1000 for the past 3 years. The last time it was ranked was 2007. In the past 20 years Anais has only been ranked in the top 1000 six times. The highest it got was 846 in 1992 (235 little girls given the name). 305 girls got the name in 2006, but it was ranked lower at 871. IMO, that is not making it in the US.

Leona had a higher rank than Anais at 993 in 2010 and 971 in 2009 (Anais isn’t ranked in the top 1000), but you’re right about Margot and Louise. While Maeva isn’t on the list, Maeve has been steadily increasing for a while now. That’s what I would consider making it. A name that people hear and like enough to start giving it to their own children. So maybe it’s just a semantics misinterpretation for “making it”. Even Maeve isn’t popular enough for most people to know how to pronounce it, nor have most people I’ve mentioned it too even heard of it before. I think Anais has way too much to overcome on paper. But like I said the correct pronunciation is beautiful. I had a hispanic student once with the name, but it was spelled Anahyi.

Anecdotally – I know of about 3 Hispanic children (now about 6-17 yr. old) named Anais when I lived in Arizona a few years ago. So maybe if that name is trending somewhat amongst the Hispanic population. I wish Dh would let me use it – it’s such a pretty name

I’m sorry but you have no idea of what’s fashionable in France.

My mom is French and I go to France often to visit my relatives. I’m fluent in French.

Amandine is a typical 80s name and so is Elodie. They are definitely not considered stylish anymore in France. Amandine is as overused as Amanda in the US, Elodie is even more common.

Capucine and Céline are 70s names, about as fashionable in France as Tracy and Stacy are in the US.

There are a few I’m surprised are not listed.

Bijou
Francine
Coletta
Monique

These are some of my favorites.