Bébé Names: the Top 10 in France

Posted by The Name Lady

Last weekend was Bastille Day, celebrating France’s first steps to becoming a republic. In light of the occasion and while whistling La Marseillaise, let’s take a look at the top 10 baby names for boys and girls in France.

 Courtesy of French website notrefamille.com, in 2011 these names were très populaire (those are the US rankings in parantheses):

1. Lucas (29)      Emma (3)
2. Mathis (n/a)   Chloé (10)
3. Nathan (28)    Léa (553)
4. Mathéo (n/a)   Manon (n/a)
5. Noah  (5)        Jade (113)
6. Nolan (93)      Camille (240)
7. Léo (167)       Lilou (n/a)
8. Hugo (439)     Lucie (n/a) Lucy (72)
9. Louis (332)     Sarah (39)
10. Enzo (400)     Maëlys (n/a)

Accents aside, most of these names are well known in the US. On the boy’s side only Mathis would be out of place on an American playground, having never made the top 1000 names here, although like Mathéo (and Matteo and Mateo) it's a variation of perennial favorite Matthew.

Although the girls list contains the very trendy Emma and Chloe, it also includes 3 names that have never been popular in the US: Lilou, Manon and Maëlys. Lilou and Manon are French examples of nicknames as names (derived from Lilianne or Louise, and Madeleine, respectively) while Maelys is a traditional Breton name).

Sadly, one of our favorite celebrity bébés, Marcel, the son of actress Marion Cotillard, didn't make the list. He's at #788.

(For more on international baby names, check out the Most Popular Names from Around the World from BabyNameWizard.com)

What French names do you hope will cross over to the US? Which names were you surprised to see are popular in France?

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