French Names
French names travel with their accent marks left at customs — Amélie becomes Amelie, Étienne becomes Etienne — but the polish survives the crossing. This list runs from salon standards (Genevieve, Simone) to the names Hollywood keeps borrowing (Margot, Remy).
| Save name | Name & connection | History 1926–2025, yearly counts; individually scaled | Babies 2025 · rank | 5-year rank movement | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Eighteen French kings' worth of pedigree. | 1,391#249 | Up 11 rank positions in five years | 1921 | ||
Napoleon's empress. | 4,126#53 | Up 34 rank positions in five years | 1918 | ||
French 'clear, bright'. | 3,487#68 | Down 10 rank positions in five years | 2016 | ||
The lion, in French. | 2,583#138 | Up 58 rank positions in five years | 1924 | ||
The French Andrew. | 868#368 | Down 86 rank positions in five years | 1970 | ||
Paris's patron saint. | 1,981#148 | Up 21 rank positions in five years | 1918 | ||
Unisex in France — Monet painted his Camille. | 1,299#240 | Up 25 rank positions in five years | 2012 | ||
French 'handsome' — the American South adopted it. | 5,165#60 | Up 49 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
Old French 'star'. | 523#573 | Up 226 rank positions in five years | 1915 | ||
French 'reborn' — Descartes' name. | 197#1,092 | Down 107 rank positions in five years | 1970 | ||
Proust's famous cake — and Bemelmans' fearless schoolgirl. | 679#455 | Down 57 rank positions in five years | 1998 | ||
Born at Christmas. | 1,507#202 | Up 8 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
Old French 'noble' — one singer made it one-name famous. | 362#751 | Up 40 rank positions in five years | 1918 | ||
The French Juliet. | 2,460#110 | Up 70 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
Victor Hugo's surname, a first name across Europe. | 837#378 | Up 43 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
Van Gogh's devoted brother. | 3,945#82 | Up 90 rank positions in five years | 2023 | ||
The single-named novelist of Paris. | 962#316 | Up 216 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
De Beauvoir and Signoret — French intellect in two syllables. | 254#998 | Down 138 rank positions in five years | 1988 | ||
The French pet form of Marguerite, 'daisy'. | 2,575#102 | Up 132 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
The French Vivian — Westwood made it fashion. | 1,786#172 | Up 89 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
Proust's narrator and namesake. | 364#731 | Down 45 rank positions in five years | 2022 | ||
The French Peter. | 159#1,253 | Down 138 rank positions in five years | 1988 | ||
From Caelina, 'heavenly' — Dion made it a household name. | 1,466#207 | Up 252 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
The French Herman: 'army man'. | 28#3,851 | Down 647 rank positions in five years | 1918 | ||
France's everyday Julian. | 380#709 | Down 123 rank positions in five years | 2009 | ||
St. Remi baptized France's first king; Pixar gave it a chef. | 781#408 | Down 52 rank positions in five years | 2022 | ||
The French James — Cousteau's name. | 80#1,938 | Up 141 rank positions in five years | 1969 | ||
The Montmartre film that sent Amélie abroad. | 329#828 | Down 20 rank positions in five years | 2013 | ||
The Provençal Anne — diarist Anaïs Nin's name. | 299#892 | Up 15 rank positions in five years | 2021 | ||
Zola's name — and Rousseau's fictional pupil. | 70#2,098 | Down 90 rank positions in five years | 1922 | ||
From silva: 'forest'. | 1,096#282 | Up 493 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
A melodic Provençal saint's name. | 980#310 | Up 393 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
Four French kings — and Matisse. | 95#1,714 | Down 133 rank positions in five years | 2021 | ||
Swan Lake's white swan. | 303#883 | Up 598 rank positions in five years | 2025 | ||
An old noble name long before Beauty and the Beast. | 34#3,395 | Up 1,514 rank positions in five years | 1918 | ||
Les Misérables' rescued daughter. | 113#1,780 | Up 80 rank positions in five years | 2015 | ||
Les Misérables' revolutionary. | 52#2,555 | Down 395 rank positions in five years | 2004 | ||
The French Stephen (Étienne). | 27#3,976 | Down 27 rank positions in five years | 2006 |
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Sources & methodology
Meaning summaries use Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) and referenced name histories. Each name’s detail page includes its sources.
Membership on this list is editorial — we chose names that genuinely fit the theme. Every number is from official birth data: "—" means the name had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, which makes it a genuinely rare pick today, not an invalid one. The dot marks whether the stats shown are for the girls' or boys' use of the name.