Bonjour, je m'appelle....

Warning: If you're a boy, you probably won't care about this post too much but still feel free to read it! I won't tell, I promise!

I always love hearing French names. I always ask Marco the names of friends or what their girlfriends names are - just because I like hearing the names. From my 200 or so student, I have gotten a fairly decent idea of what the popular names of their generation were. Of course, for each generation there are names that are 'in' or 'out.' For example, I love the name Christine. It is elegant, refined, but still has a hint of youthfulness to me. I told Marco that one day upon which he immediately voiced his distaste of the name - evidently it is extremely old-fashioned...kinda like Barbara! Here are names for girls, then boys, in 2009, 1994, and 1987.

Top 10 most popular girls' names in 2009:

1. Emma

2. Clara

3. Lea

4. Manon

5. Chloe

6. Jade

7. Camille

8. Ines

9. Sarah

10. Lola

Top 10 most popular girls' names in 1994: (average DOB of my students)

1. Laura

2. Manon

3. Marie

4. Camille

5. Marine

6. Anais

7. Melanie

8. Pauline

9. Marion

10. Julie

Top 10 most popular girls' names in 1987: (my DOB!)

1. Julie

2. Aurelie

3. Elodie

4. Emilie

5. Marie

6. Audrey

7. Stephanie

8. Celine

9. Pauline

10. Sophie

Notice how for 1987 ALL of the girls names end in either 'ie' or 'ine' - this is still the case with most of my students. Just guess a names with 'ie' or 'ine' at the end and you're probably close to being right! My name was ranked about 500 in 1987 - I tried to find the equivalent in France but their ranking only goes to 100. According to that my name would have been Magalie. UGH! Sounds like a maggot.

Top 10 most popular boys' names in 2009:

1. Enzo

2. Lucas

3. Mathis

4. Nathan

5. Raphael

6. Tom

7. Thomas

8. Matheo

9. Hugo

10. Louis

Top 10 most popular boys' names in 1994:

1. Kevin

2. Nicolas

3. Alexandre

4. Thomas

5. Maxime

6. Julien

7. Quentin

8. Romain

9. Antoine

10. Florian

Top 10 most popular boys' names in 1987:

1. Julien

2. Nicolas

3. Romain

4. Jeremy

5. Alexandre

6. Anthony

7. Guillaume

8. Thomas

9. Kevin

10. Sebastien

A lot of boys in my classes have names that end in 'ien' or 'in' which is pronounced the same: Julien, Corentin, Quentin, Valentin, Sebastien.....

With boys names, and occasionally girls names, it is common to hyphenate names. I have numerous Jean-Baptiste's and Pierre-Yves' in my classes. Other people I know that have names like these are Marco (Marc-Antoine) and his friend PM (Pierre-Mathieu).

It is also very easy to change a boys' name to a girls' name and vice-versa. Emmanuel can be changed to Emmanuelle, Pascal to Pascale, Francois to Francoise, Romain to Romaine etc. By adding an 'e' at the end of the name, it changes the sound and the gender. The only bi-gender name I know in French is Camille, which is still popular for both.

If you want to check out the popular names for your birth year, here is the site I used: http://www.tous-les-prenoms.com/top/index.php?type=annee&letopdesprenomsparannee_annee=1987&x=53&y=4

You can pick the year on the right-hand side under 'Le Top des Prenoms Par Annee.'

-Barbara