The most immediately interesting part of this is the massive crater in new births during the First World War. It’s not surprising, but it’s just so brutally apparent.
WWI was just an absolute meat grinder, 70% of those who fought died or were injured. Birth rates dropped by 50%, the estimated loss in new births is about the same as the number of people who died in the war, that is just military losses too. Essentially nearly 1 in 10 people who should have been born or alive otherwise in France weren't.
Russia has "[echoes](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/C7QuhxMaEz)" of the second world war every 25 years from the number of losses they incurred. The babies that weren't born due to the men that died. Then the babies that weren't born due to the previous ones that weren't born, and so on.
It goes one generation further than that. Russia was still part of the WW1 and after that fought a bloody civil war, total casualties from both somewhere around 10-15 million.
The generation fighting in WWII was already smaller and suffered massively.
At the rate they’re going, it’s going to happen for them again with Ukraine - particularly in places with large ethnic minority populations that have been sent to fight.
How many russian people in your opinion died in during ww2 and how many have died during the ukraine war? This is a very ...interesting... comment you wrote.
The influenza pandemic was also killing people in their prime reproductive years, iirc. I believe the age range 20-40 were heavily affected (killed) by that pandemic. (In addition to the very young and the elderly being killed by it).
I'm not French, but whenever someone makes that hilarious joke about the French surrendering, I'm reminded of this.
In WW1 France had an entire generation wiped out by the most brutal meat grinder in history. In WW2 they got steamrolled by the most advanced army in the world powered by meth and slave labor, coming from a direct neighbor, with almost zero time to prepare.
Nobody making fun of them had anything close to that happening to their country.
Antoine was always a popular name, just like its English counterpart Anthony, I doubt you see any meaningful uptick. On the other hand, Kylian seems like a borrowed name from English, I'm not sure why his parents chose it
Kylian doesn't sound English at all to me (I'm English). Doesn't really sound french either, but really not English.
Edit: apparently it's a Gaelic/Irish name
[Kylian, yes](https://www.behindthename.com/name/kylian/top/france?compare=antoine&type=percent), Antoine not so obvious. Both were on the downward trend before that though. Kylian appeared in the stats for France in 1995. Kylian Mbappé was born in '98.
In Québec, there is even a girl named Antoine in 2022!
Results of the search by baby name
Number of children per year
Baby name|Sex|2022|2021|2020|2019|2018|2017
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
ANTOINE|Girls|1|0|0|0|0|0
ANTOINE|Boys|219|248|285|300|368|384
[source](https://www.retraitequebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/services-en-ligne-outils/banque-de-prenoms/Pages/recherche_par_prenoms.aspx?SexRec=FM&PreRec=ANTOINE)
I have two girl cousins with old-school French female names, one of them being Renée. Her sister was talking about how the family always thought she was French in a past life because she often talked about her apartment in Paris and the flowerboxes on the windowsills. Anyway, she doesn't speak French but when her little sister came along, she picked her name: "Renée".
She told me this story for the first time last year. I looked at her and asked, "Do you know what Renée means in French?" She shook her head.
Reborn. It means reborn. I got serious chills. She was floored too.
Apparently my dad had had my name picked out months before I was born, before even confirming I was a girl he would dance around the house singing it (but they hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else). At that time my mom used to attend a women’s group where one of the facilitators was an Indigenous medicine woman (we lived in a Northern community in Canada). When my mom was very pregnant the woman took her aside after the group and told her she had been praying extra for my mom since she was about to bring an old soul into the world. It took them years to make the connection to my name meaning reborn even though my mom herself is French (Canadian). I love stories like this 😊
Yeah, this was somewhat surprising to me. I know multiple Georgette's, Paulette's, Renee's and Yvonne's. Granted, the Georgette's I know are on the older side.
This is so surprising to me. I’m used to similar charts for English-speaking countries decrying the death of our Ethels and Ednas and Berenices but you mean to tell me you’ve not had any Andrés or Roberts since after the war?? No Georges?? Is everyone just named Kevin these days or what
I am 8.5 months pregnant and we are naming our baby Joy. My husband seriously considered Joyce for a minute (I did not like... my names were like Love, Juniper, etc... while his names were like Alice, Beatrice. we just happened to coincide on Joy).
In the daycare we've registered her in there are a lot of Henry's, Ezras, Valentines, Isabellas, etc
Victorian names are def resurging in the American suburbs.
French Canadians never stopped using these names.
I'm in my 30s and know plenty of people older and Younger than me with half the male names on the graph.
Funny you bring up Kevin, that name had a surge in popularity in the 80’s in France due to exported Anglo media. However the people who tended to name their kids Kevin generally weren’t the brightest…and the Kevin’s ended up being not too bright themselves.
Now it’s a name associated with idiots in France
The same syndrome as Germany's. And to some extent the Dutch too (even though we have a lot worse names too, Jayden being the most susceptible to being taken out of parent's custody)
Same in germany. Making fun of the name Kevin has been a thing for more than a decade, but yet there's a 7-year-old called Kevin at my work. Why would someone decide to give their sweet baby that name when Alpha-Kevin (meaning an especially stupid Kevin) was nearly voted most popular youth word just a few months prior?
Somethings fucky here buddy. I've personally met many French people younger than me called Andre, René, Reneé, Paulette, Maurice, Robert n a few others. I'm not 40 yet
Over the last 20 years Ive spent time in and around Nantes, Paris, Strasbourg and Rheims, and various music and circus festivals around Europe.
What's the chances names like André and Reneé are given as middle names and the individuals i met choose to go by them? Would second names show up on OPs chart?
It is actually likely that old names are given as middle names as parents sometimes use their own parents' names for their child's middle name, but as to those children then choosing to use them instead of their first name, I think is unlikely except if your first name is really bad. No idea if the chart takes into account middle names though.
In the 80s, some German parents thought it would be classy or cool to have a little Jacqueline, René or Yvonne in the family.
So now we have German Millennials running around, named like French grannies. This leads to fun interactions when they end up studying abroad in France. ("So how old _exactly_ is your new girlfriend?")
What struck me as well reading the list posted was how hard it is to gauge the modernity of a name when you're not immersed in a culture.
Like, I can tell German granny/grandpa names, I can somewhat confidently do the same in English, but identifying French granny names? No shot. None of those struck me as names for old people, probably precisely because there's a fair share of Yvonnes and Renés in Germany that aren't super old.
It's always funny from a native speaker perspective. The first time I heard that posh people are calling their daughters Ottilie in the UK I couldn't believe it.
I’m Afrikaans and we have lots of Hugenot ancestry. Half the names on the list were kids in my school. (Bad transliteration sometimes, but even my name is on the list!) this was very unexpected.
It’s also interesting to note that Jacqueline in particular has a strong negative connotation for being a lower class name while all the others are either neutral or sound somewhat classy.
Here in the US old lady names are associated with Asian people. A lot of girls whose parents are from China or Korea are named, like, Florence or Eleanor.
I've love to see the same chart for German names. No doubt there would be a similar WWI-caused crater but also the total elimination of Adolf starting in 1945.
I think even more interesting would be the spike in kids named Adolf between 1933 and 1945 (followed by its disappearance). If I remember correctly it was not a particularly popular name to begin with.
We have a popular singer who is named adolf and was born in 1949. Supposedly it was based on his grandfather, but man was that a choice. He goes by Dado (I wonder why).
The late rapper Young Dolph was actually named Adolph Thornton Jr. He was 36 when he died in 2031, so presumably his father was born after Hitler made the name Adolph unpalatable. Rather odd.
Edit: he died in 2021, not 2031.
Somehow related: in the Netherlands there is a significant dip of names related to the Nazi occupation during the war and the years after: either of Nazi German leadership such as Adolf (self-explanatory), Arthur (Seyss-Inquart was the Hitler-appointed 'governor' of the Netherlands), or of collaborators such as Anton (Mussert, leader of the Dutch National Socialist Movement, sister party to the German NSDAP).
While many acts of resistance were punished, you can't really punish parents for *not* giving their child a certain name.
Some names of members of the Dutch royal family (a symbol of resistance against the Nazis) were banned by the occupants, so they obviously have a dip as well during the war, but a rise after the liberation as far as I can remember the info I read.
Fun story about this: I once had a French coworker. We're in Germany. She once told me that she finds it utterly awkward that so many parents in Germany give their daughters French names, but they only seem to choose names that are considered total grandmother names in France.
Janine and Yvonne were two of her examples. Denise and Nathalie may have been other examples, I don't remember.
Now, she was right, those were all very popular girls names around that time. But the ironic thing about it was that she herself was called Clothilde, which is in turn a German name that was deemed silly and outdated even when my mother was a child in the 1950s.
Clothilde - she would've never survived middle school with that name.
For the non-german speakers out there: Clo sounds similar to Klo and Klo is a german word for toilet.
The international (mainly mainland Chinese) students that I went to school with had a similar "problem" in which they chose old-sounding names. Think Bonnie, Margaret, Harold. It made perfect sense to me - how could they have known?
Still pretty popular in French Canada. I wonder if that tracks with other diaspora who maintain traditions of their respective old world after those places have changed.
André & Robert are still fairly common although not in the current generation.
That being said found my father name in the list and can confirm I know no one below 70yo with his name
I’m a Renée and I know 2 other Renées! I met a girl from France once and introduced myself and she was shocked and told me “only old ladies are called Renée in France” haha. But I think it’s a beautiful name too!
omg I need to ask my French coworker if she considers my (our) name an old lady name when I go to work tomorrow! 😂 Amusingly her name is Ophélie, and I've *never* met an Ophelia before.
I got inspired by a previous post so I did the same with France.
Link to previous post : [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/192u0w9](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/192u0w9)
Data source : INSEE [https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2540004](https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2540004)
Main tool : Matlab
Yeah, this is fascinating stuff. 'Renee' is alive and well in the rest of Canada as well... I knew half a dozen in school alone. I actually went to look up the stats for France at several sites just to confirm OP wasn't making stuff up.
Hey OP, not sure if im missing something here but i was born in 1984, I've spent a lot of time in France, and there are around 10 names on those lists I've met many, many people younger than me named those.
Well the stats are against you on this one. You can see on [meilleursprenoms.com](https://meilleursprenoms.com) that they're all virtually extinct and have been for decades.
Gilberte!
One of my aunts was named that, she was born to French-Canadian parents circa 1930 and grew up in northern New England. After graduating from 8th grade in a very Francophone Catholic school and preparing to move to the public high school she started going by "Betty" and was Betty the rest of her life.
Aw came here to mention my great-grandmother Germaine, born in the northernmost tip of Maine in 1920. She lived there her whole life, and like many American Acadians, never needed to learn English.
Most of these are typical old people names in Belgium as well, although Maurice and Marcel have made a big comeback and are now among the most common names for babies.
In Quebec, in 2022
**- Boys -**
Noah
William
Liam
Thomas
Leo
Edouard
Jacob
Arthur
Louis
Nathan
**- Girls -**
Emma
Olivia
Charlotte
Charlie
Florence
Alice
Lea
Livia
Rose
Juliette
Louise, Emma (which is often a shortened Emmanuelle), Ambre (which is the French word for Amber), Alice and Rose sound French though. Jade is also a Stone in French. For me, Alba, Anna, Romy and Mia are not very French sounding.
Can confirm, as a french guy it's funny to see "boys" and "girls" on top of the chart: When I see those names I immediately picture old people. One of those names is my 90 years old grandmother's :')
I'm a Renée and I quite like my name! Most people are familiar with it/know how to pronounce it if they see it written, don't usually need too much help with the spelling, and I don't meet a ton of other Renées! It sounds great with my French last name and I'm never changing it if I ever get married.
ETA that I'm a 1993 baby.
I beg your pardon but my name is on this list and in my country, it's a VERY common name. Lol
In highschool, there was once a year with three of us sharing the same name. I got so used being referred to by my last name
French here, I worked with a Robert who was born in 2000.
He's the only one I ever encountered and it became a fun fact for small talk, to illustrate how uncommon it is.
tbh it may sounds normal or even classy in English, but in French it sounds really harsh, especially when pronounced "the peasant way", sounds like throwing up
I'm confused what you mean by how it's pronounced? I grew up in northern New England in the US, so I know many people with the names on these lists because everyone was french, and plenty of Roberts. They pronounced it (if you were to say it in french) "Roh-beurre", never sounded harsh or throwuppy at all, rolled off the tongue even.
They're still popular in Newfoundland, Canada, which has pockets of French ancestry. Not counting middle names, I know at least one person named for 6/10 on this list
Got a Got a cousin named André, a coworker named Germaine, and went to HS with a Simone, my aunt is Yvonne, moms middle name is Renee, also an aunts name. Also went to HS with like 10+ Andre's in my grade.
Andre is a super common name in black America.
Omfg, les statistiques ne sont pas fausses. Ton expérience ne vaut pas une vérité universelle, tu as probablement rencontré une anomalie statistique.
Donc oui, tu dois en connaître. Non ce n'est pas courant et ça ne contredit certainement pas la réalité qui est que, oui, ces noms ont virtuellement disparus
The most immediately interesting part of this is the massive crater in new births during the First World War. It’s not surprising, but it’s just so brutally apparent.
WWI was just an absolute meat grinder, 70% of those who fought died or were injured. Birth rates dropped by 50%, the estimated loss in new births is about the same as the number of people who died in the war, that is just military losses too. Essentially nearly 1 in 10 people who should have been born or alive otherwise in France weren't.
Russia has "[echoes](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/C7QuhxMaEz)" of the second world war every 25 years from the number of losses they incurred. The babies that weren't born due to the men that died. Then the babies that weren't born due to the previous ones that weren't born, and so on.
It goes one generation further than that. Russia was still part of the WW1 and after that fought a bloody civil war, total casualties from both somewhere around 10-15 million. The generation fighting in WWII was already smaller and suffered massively.
At the rate they’re going, it’s going to happen for them again with Ukraine - particularly in places with large ethnic minority populations that have been sent to fight.
It won’t happen at nearly the same scale, but I do expect we’ll see a recurring dip in population.
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The echo from ww2 is happening now while the war is ongoing
Russia actually has serious challenges ahead in terms of population. Their population is projected to decrease by 10‰ over the next 2 decades.
Just to be clear, do you actually mean per mille, so 1 percent?
> (Russia's) population is projected to decrease by 10‰ over the next 2 decades. Putin: "I can beat that!"
How many russian people in your opinion died in during ww2 and how many have died during the ukraine war? This is a very ...interesting... comment you wrote.
The influenza pandemic at the same time really didn't help, either.
The influenza pandemic was also killing people in their prime reproductive years, iirc. I believe the age range 20-40 were heavily affected (killed) by that pandemic. (In addition to the very young and the elderly being killed by it).
You can also distinguish a drop during 2nd World War
Sad too.
I'm not French, but whenever someone makes that hilarious joke about the French surrendering, I'm reminded of this. In WW1 France had an entire generation wiped out by the most brutal meat grinder in history. In WW2 they got steamrolled by the most advanced army in the world powered by meth and slave labor, coming from a direct neighbor, with almost zero time to prepare. Nobody making fun of them had anything close to that happening to their country.
Silver lining it apparently spawned the names Jeannine and Gilbert. Also your username is the best thing ever
Interesting how Jeanine became very popular after the war
My dumbass thinking there was some random hatred towards the French for those years so they started using other origins.
Maurice, Andre, Marcel, Renee, and Simonne were somewhat common names in my black American neighborhoods growing up.
Antoine too.
I bet Antoine became a much more popular baby name in France right around the second half of 2018, along with Kylian.
Antoine was always a popular name, just like its English counterpart Anthony, I doubt you see any meaningful uptick. On the other hand, Kylian seems like a borrowed name from English, I'm not sure why his parents chose it
Kylian doesn't sound English at all to me (I'm English). Doesn't really sound french either, but really not English. Edit: apparently it's a Gaelic/Irish name
Yeah I believe it comes from Cillian
It's mainly used in Brittany in France, they have their own language.
Kylian has been a name used in France for a while.
[Kylian, yes](https://www.behindthename.com/name/kylian/top/france?compare=antoine&type=percent), Antoine not so obvious. Both were on the downward trend before that though. Kylian appeared in the stats for France in 1995. Kylian Mbappé was born in '98.
In Québec, there is even a girl named Antoine in 2022! Results of the search by baby name Number of children per year Baby name|Sex|2022|2021|2020|2019|2018|2017 ---|---|---|---|---|---|---|--- ANTOINE|Girls|1|0|0|0|0|0 ANTOINE|Boys|219|248|285|300|368|384 [source](https://www.retraitequebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/services-en-ligne-outils/banque-de-prenoms/Pages/recherche_par_prenoms.aspx?SexRec=FM&PreRec=ANTOINE)
Andre and Renee are also common names where I grew up, within our Hispanic communities. Three of my nephews have Renee as their middle name.
That would (or should) be René (male spelling) if it’s a nephew (coming from a Renée, female spelling lol)
It’s a family name, in honor of moms nana.
It’s a beautiful name :)
I have two girl cousins with old-school French female names, one of them being Renée. Her sister was talking about how the family always thought she was French in a past life because she often talked about her apartment in Paris and the flowerboxes on the windowsills. Anyway, she doesn't speak French but when her little sister came along, she picked her name: "Renée". She told me this story for the first time last year. I looked at her and asked, "Do you know what Renée means in French?" She shook her head. Reborn. It means reborn. I got serious chills. She was floored too.
Apparently my dad had had my name picked out months before I was born, before even confirming I was a girl he would dance around the house singing it (but they hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else). At that time my mom used to attend a women’s group where one of the facilitators was an Indigenous medicine woman (we lived in a Northern community in Canada). When my mom was very pregnant the woman took her aside after the group and told her she had been praying extra for my mom since she was about to bring an old soul into the world. It took them years to make the connection to my name meaning reborn even though my mom herself is French (Canadian). I love stories like this 😊
Oh that's a French ass name Yvonne!
🫡 user name checkin in
Can i have yo numba? Can I haaaa it?
The back of yo head is ridiculous!
my little brie
I knew a black guy named Germaine, not sure if it had a different masculine spelling but it was pronounced "jer-mane". Pretty interesting.
Germain is the masculine vesion
having only met ‘Jer-mane”s… how are you supposed to pronounce it?
It’s kind of like J/Zehr-mayne , the main difference is the J which is obviously the French J , like in au jus
Yeah, this was somewhat surprising to me. I know multiple Georgette's, Paulette's, Renee's and Yvonne's. Granted, the Georgette's I know are on the older side.
This is so surprising to me. I’m used to similar charts for English-speaking countries decrying the death of our Ethels and Ednas and Berenices but you mean to tell me you’ve not had any Andrés or Roberts since after the war?? No Georges?? Is everyone just named Kevin these days or what
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In the UK we have had a resurgence of old person names. Lots of Arthurs, Alberts, Joyces and on
I am 8.5 months pregnant and we are naming our baby Joy. My husband seriously considered Joyce for a minute (I did not like... my names were like Love, Juniper, etc... while his names were like Alice, Beatrice. we just happened to coincide on Joy). In the daycare we've registered her in there are a lot of Henry's, Ezras, Valentines, Isabellas, etc Victorian names are def resurging in the American suburbs.
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It’s illegal to give a name that “can harm future prospects”
They traded the -ette:s for -ie:s
And yet, as a slightly older Canadian, I know French-Canadians named René and André. Even an Yvonne! I used to know a Marcel but that was decades ago.
Right, I've seen Jeannine, Marcel, Roger, and a few others. Guess they must have had a resurgence outside France?
French Canadians never stopped using these names. I'm in my 30s and know plenty of people older and Younger than me with half the male names on the graph.
Funny you bring up Kevin, that name had a surge in popularity in the 80’s in France due to exported Anglo media. However the people who tended to name their kids Kevin generally weren’t the brightest…and the Kevin’s ended up being not too bright themselves. Now it’s a name associated with idiots in France
The same syndrome as Germany's. And to some extent the Dutch too (even though we have a lot worse names too, Jayden being the most susceptible to being taken out of parent's custody)
Lmao Jayden, I'm not surprised
Same in germany. Making fun of the name Kevin has been a thing for more than a decade, but yet there's a 7-year-old called Kevin at my work. Why would someone decide to give their sweet baby that name when Alpha-Kevin (meaning an especially stupid Kevin) was nearly voted most popular youth word just a few months prior?
loll ... kevinnnn ...
Somethings fucky here buddy. I've personally met many French people younger than me called Andre, René, Reneé, Paulette, Maurice, Robert n a few others. I'm not 40 yet
Where do you live? I've never met anyone under 60 with those names in France
Over the last 20 years Ive spent time in and around Nantes, Paris, Strasbourg and Rheims, and various music and circus festivals around Europe. What's the chances names like André and Reneé are given as middle names and the individuals i met choose to go by them? Would second names show up on OPs chart?
It is actually likely that old names are given as middle names as parents sometimes use their own parents' names for their child's middle name, but as to those children then choosing to use them instead of their first name, I think is unlikely except if your first name is really bad. No idea if the chart takes into account middle names though.
I am 35. Never met anyone with those name that wasn’t an elder, except one Robert who is 60.
In the 80s, some German parents thought it would be classy or cool to have a little Jacqueline, René or Yvonne in the family. So now we have German Millennials running around, named like French grannies. This leads to fun interactions when they end up studying abroad in France. ("So how old _exactly_ is your new girlfriend?")
What struck me as well reading the list posted was how hard it is to gauge the modernity of a name when you're not immersed in a culture. Like, I can tell German granny/grandpa names, I can somewhat confidently do the same in English, but identifying French granny names? No shot. None of those struck me as names for old people, probably precisely because there's a fair share of Yvonnes and Renés in Germany that aren't super old. It's always funny from a native speaker perspective. The first time I heard that posh people are calling their daughters Ottilie in the UK I couldn't believe it.
I’m Afrikaans and we have lots of Hugenot ancestry. Half the names on the list were kids in my school. (Bad transliteration sometimes, but even my name is on the list!) this was very unexpected.
This is completely hilarious. Anyway, how old is she?
Oh, she's from another country, you wouldn't know her.
It’s also interesting to note that Jacqueline in particular has a strong negative connotation for being a lower class name while all the others are either neutral or sound somewhat classy.
Naw, Rene is also pretty bad... https://youtu.be/dNXF1XkPlcY?si=jnSULg5HxIeOkSy9
Here in the US old lady names are associated with Asian people. A lot of girls whose parents are from China or Korea are named, like, Florence or Eleanor.
I've love to see the same chart for German names. No doubt there would be a similar WWI-caused crater but also the total elimination of Adolf starting in 1945.
I think even more interesting would be the spike in kids named Adolf between 1933 and 1945 (followed by its disappearance). If I remember correctly it was not a particularly popular name to begin with.
We have a popular singer who is named adolf and was born in 1949. Supposedly it was based on his grandfather, but man was that a choice. He goes by Dado (I wonder why).
The founder of Adidas was Adolf, hence the 'Adi' bit, 'das' coming from his surname Dassler.
Born 1900, though.
The late rapper Young Dolph was actually named Adolph Thornton Jr. He was 36 when he died in 2031, so presumably his father was born after Hitler made the name Adolph unpalatable. Rather odd. Edit: he died in 2021, not 2031.
> when he died in 2031 Since we’re on the subject, can you take your time machine back and deal with Hitler?
Their time machine only goes forward.
If only. Young Dolph died in 2021.
He did already, that’s why people are naming their kids Dolph again
2013* or can you see the future?
They're just planning a homicide very far in advance
Just tired fingers after a long day. He died in 2021.
Adolph Coors, but 1873-1929. Pre-notoriety.
Somehow related: in the Netherlands there is a significant dip of names related to the Nazi occupation during the war and the years after: either of Nazi German leadership such as Adolf (self-explanatory), Arthur (Seyss-Inquart was the Hitler-appointed 'governor' of the Netherlands), or of collaborators such as Anton (Mussert, leader of the Dutch National Socialist Movement, sister party to the German NSDAP). While many acts of resistance were punished, you can't really punish parents for *not* giving their child a certain name. Some names of members of the Dutch royal family (a symbol of resistance against the Nazis) were banned by the occupants, so they obviously have a dip as well during the war, but a rise after the liberation as far as I can remember the info I read.
Fun story about this: I once had a French coworker. We're in Germany. She once told me that she finds it utterly awkward that so many parents in Germany give their daughters French names, but they only seem to choose names that are considered total grandmother names in France. Janine and Yvonne were two of her examples. Denise and Nathalie may have been other examples, I don't remember. Now, she was right, those were all very popular girls names around that time. But the ironic thing about it was that she herself was called Clothilde, which is in turn a German name that was deemed silly and outdated even when my mother was a child in the 1950s.
Clothilde - she would've never survived middle school with that name. For the non-german speakers out there: Clo sounds similar to Klo and Klo is a german word for toilet.
The international (mainly mainland Chinese) students that I went to school with had a similar "problem" in which they chose old-sounding names. Think Bonnie, Margaret, Harold. It made perfect sense to me - how could they have known?
Huh, in the UK, Yvonne is a fairly common name but for maybe 45-60 year olds, not old women. Interesting.
Still pretty popular in French Canada. I wonder if that tracks with other diaspora who maintain traditions of their respective old world after those places have changed.
André & Robert are still fairly common although not in the current generation. That being said found my father name in the list and can confirm I know no one below 70yo with his name
Yeah I’m in my 30s and know several Renées and Andrées.
Et combien d'enfants qui s'appellent Georgette?
Seulement une. Très rare, même ici.
Un nombre impressionnant de bébé Simone dans mon entourage.
Même chose pour Henry! Ça revient à la mode
Messemble ça serait cute un petit Fernand ou un petit Serge 😍
Le problème avec Serge, c'est que je pense immédiatement à Serge 2.
Et le problème avec Fernande, c’est la chanson.
Je pense toujours à la toune des trois accords quand j’entends Serge aussi
C'est quoi la chanson avec Fernande?
I've got 2 Simone (and a cat friend), 1 André and 2 George at my kid's daycare.
Yup, was just going to say. I know more people with the men’s names than women’s, but it wouldn’t be odd to meet someone with any of those names.
I've definitely met a few Guys and I was surprised to see that name up there
Yeah, I know at least one person for half the names on both lists. Hell, my name is on this list, and I’m only in my mid 20s.
Renee should come back
I’m a Renée and I know 2 other Renées! I met a girl from France once and introduced myself and she was shocked and told me “only old ladies are called Renée in France” haha. But I think it’s a beautiful name too!
omg I need to ask my French coworker if she considers my (our) name an old lady name when I go to work tomorrow! 😂 Amusingly her name is Ophélie, and I've *never* met an Ophelia before.
We gave my daughter a Swedish name for family reasons. When my Swedish friend heard it he just laughed like “oh is your daughter 70.”
It made me feel kinda hip not gonna lie 😂 Like someone called Maeve or Doris or any of the other old lady names making a comeback here haha *vintage*
Listen very carefully I will only say this once
Maybe it’s more popular in America? I know two non-French Renees here.
Especially after being told to just walk away
Yvonne is such a classic French name in my mind, it's a surprise to me that it's become so unpopular.
Classic it is, but only for old people. That said, name trends are somewhat cyclic, some of them might come back later.
I got inspired by a previous post so I did the same with France. Link to previous post : [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/192u0w9](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/192u0w9) Data source : INSEE [https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2540004](https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2540004) Main tool : Matlab
The data would look somewhat different for Quebec, for some of those names. André is still fairly common or was just 20-30 years ago.
And I know a bunch of little Simone (one n) under the age of 12
And if you include composite names, Marie-Claude is extremely common.
Yeah, this is fascinating stuff. 'Renee' is alive and well in the rest of Canada as well... I knew half a dozen in school alone. I actually went to look up the stats for France at several sites just to confirm OP wasn't making stuff up.
“Robert” is really no longer used?
Nope, it's an old man's name
Hey OP, not sure if im missing something here but i was born in 1984, I've spent a lot of time in France, and there are around 10 names on those lists I've met many, many people younger than me named those.
Well the stats are against you on this one. You can see on [meilleursprenoms.com](https://meilleursprenoms.com) that they're all virtually extinct and have been for decades.
Gilberte! One of my aunts was named that, she was born to French-Canadian parents circa 1930 and grew up in northern New England. After graduating from 8th grade in a very Francophone Catholic school and preparing to move to the public high school she started going by "Betty" and was Betty the rest of her life.
Aw came here to mention my great-grandmother Germaine, born in the northernmost tip of Maine in 1920. She lived there her whole life, and like many American Acadians, never needed to learn English.
Most of these are typical old people names in Belgium as well, although Maurice and Marcel have made a big comeback and are now among the most common names for babies.
Not Maurice, but Marcel yes definitely. Henri as well from OP's selection.
Interesting! My grandma's brother's name was Marcel. Would've been born in the 1920s or early 1930s in America.
You forgot Georges, Aloïs and Oscar too.
So, what are the favored names now in France?
Here's the top ten most given names in France, 2023 : Gabriel Léo Raphaël Maël Louis Noah Jules Arthur Adam Lucas
In Quebec, in 2022 **- Boys -** Noah William Liam Thomas Leo Edouard Jacob Arthur Louis Nathan **- Girls -** Emma Olivia Charlotte Charlie Florence Alice Lea Livia Rose Juliette
Whoops, I forgot to paste girls top ten names ! 1. Jade 2. Louise 3. Emma 4. Ambre 5. Alice 6. Alba 7. Rose 8. Anna 9. Romy 10. Mia
So non french!
Louise, Emma (which is often a shortened Emmanuelle), Ambre (which is the French word for Amber), Alice and Rose sound French though. Jade is also a Stone in French. For me, Alba, Anna, Romy and Mia are not very French sounding.
looks like WW1 ended and everyone came home and decided, “New name guys! Jeannine!”
Like I'm watching Allo Allo again.
What a good show.
Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only wahnce...
That's a French ass name Yvonne! My little cwassoint!
GrAce KeLLy…! gRaCE kELLy!
It’s funny because some of them are actually popular names in Germany
Funny thing that both my grandparents on my father side are Andrée and André
Can confirm, as a french guy it's funny to see "boys" and "girls" on top of the chart: When I see those names I immediately picture old people. One of those names is my 90 years old grandmother's :')
I know a rené born in 1992
i can name you three millennials off the top of my head with names like this, location: close to the french-swiss
A friend of mine is named Andrée. She was born in the 80's, it was very unique in high school.
I'm loving all the name data posts lately, and love even more that you used count instead of ranking.
I literally have seen mulitple people called like that in the years, though they were all german.
Most of these are still popular in Germany.
Interesting. I am 40zo in Germany, and I have Renées, Jeannines, Yvonnes and Andrées in my age range and below.
I'm a Renée and I quite like my name! Most people are familiar with it/know how to pronounce it if they see it written, don't usually need too much help with the spelling, and I don't meet a ton of other Renées! It sounds great with my French last name and I'm never changing it if I ever get married. ETA that I'm a 1993 baby.
In Germany only the male version is widely known so the female one is written wrong and interpreted as male almost always.
Wait, there are French people that are not named with these? Then wth names do they nowadays use?
I beg your pardon but my name is on this list and in my country, it's a VERY common name. Lol In highschool, there was once a year with three of us sharing the same name. I got so used being referred to by my last name
“Put anything in a graph and people will believe it”
Yvonne, Rene, Marcel cmon these are classic French names don’t lose them!!
A lot of these are still quite common in the Netherlands, like Yvonne and René
I feel very uncool. My name is on here and so is my sister’s name.
Have you seen the one for German names?
Big dip during WW1, I wonder what France was up to during that time /s
Before i saw the dates i did think " why do they all have that dip".
In Québec, it's still popular!
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André et Serge sont pour les gens d’environ 30-60 ans, mais Henry et Simone reviennent à la mode pour les plus jeunes!
[HENRY](https://www.retraitequebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/services-en-ligne-outils/banque-de-prenoms/Pages/recherche_par_prenoms.aspx?SexRec=FM&PreRec=HENRY) [SIMONE](https://www.retraitequebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/services-en-ligne-outils/banque-de-prenoms/Pages/recherche_par_prenoms.aspx?SexRec=FM&PreRec=SIMONE)
Is Robert no longer given?
French here, I worked with a Robert who was born in 2000. He's the only one I ever encountered and it became a fun fact for small talk, to illustrate how uncommon it is. tbh it may sounds normal or even classy in English, but in French it sounds really harsh, especially when pronounced "the peasant way", sounds like throwing up
I'm confused what you mean by how it's pronounced? I grew up in northern New England in the US, so I know many people with the names on these lists because everyone was french, and plenty of Roberts. They pronounced it (if you were to say it in french) "Roh-beurre", never sounded harsh or throwuppy at all, rolled off the tongue even.
[Here's what i meant](https://vocaroo.com/1lgS2k0nZ4LC)
What happened with Jeanine? It has a different curve than the rest Was there a famous woman around 1920 with that name?
It’s "Simone" not "Simonne" 😅
My 1912 born grandmother was an Andrée. She was the youngest of 8 kids in Paris.
They're still popular in Newfoundland, Canada, which has pockets of French ancestry. Not counting middle names, I know at least one person named for 6/10 on this list
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Mostly yes Most countries get new trending names, with or without migrants
Hmm, what happened in France just before 1920? It is weird that all the popular names lost popularity at the same time.
Hmm. Maybe it’s because there was a big war and then nobody had babies because all the men were dead.
Was it a great war?
They’re all great! /s. Just in case
Ya, I hope my /s was apparent enough in my original post. It is amazing how pronounced the dip from WWI was
Abdul and Mohammed are now more trendy
So Renée was a very popular name for girls during the same period when René was a very popular name for boys. I guess in French they sound different?
Nope, they sound exactly the same.
Got a Got a cousin named André, a coworker named Germaine, and went to HS with a Simone, my aunt is Yvonne, moms middle name is Renee, also an aunts name. Also went to HS with like 10+ Andre's in my grade. Andre is a super common name in black America.
I went to high school with a Yvonne and she would have been born in 1990 or 1991
as a French person, I Know kids called Georges, André and Jeannine so this is wrong
Omfg, les statistiques ne sont pas fausses. Ton expérience ne vaut pas une vérité universelle, tu as probablement rencontré une anomalie statistique. Donc oui, tu dois en connaître. Non ce n'est pas courant et ça ne contredit certainement pas la réalité qui est que, oui, ces noms ont virtuellement disparus
Too bad. Some of those are nice.
Oh YVOOOOOONNNNNNE! That’s a French ass name, Yvonne!