| French First Names |
| Prénoms français |
Introduction | Boy Names | Girl Names
There are hundreds of common French first names. Some of them look just like their English counterparts, others are fairly similar, and still others may be uniquely French. These pages include more than 200 of the most popular French names, along with their pronunciation and English equivalents. When looking at these names, please keep the following things in mind:
1. Hyphenated names are very popular in France. They are usually composed of two names from the same gender; i.e., Jean-Pierre, Paul-Henri, Anne-Laure, or Marie-Élise. Less commonly, they are composed of one boy name and one girl name, with the "correct" gender name first, as in Jean-Marie for a boy or Marie-Jacques for a girl. Note that hyphenated names are considered a single unit - together, they are the person's first name, not a first and a middle. In other words, if you are introduced to "Pierre-Louis Lefèvre," be sure to call him Pierre-Louis, not Pierre.
2. Many masculine names can be made feminine with the addition of an e at the end. When this occurs with a boy name that already ends in an E, the male/female distinction is apparent only in spelling, not pronunciation. For example, Aimé (masculine) and Aimée (feminine) are pronounced the same way (learn more about French pronunciation).
Without further ado, click on the following links to discover some of the
most popular first names in France.
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