Billy, Lucy, Alex: Is there a French town or village with your name?
You can check on the map below or review the data yourself
Many people share their name with a town or village
Popartic / Shutterstock
A graphic designer has created a map of towns and villages in France that share popular Christian names.
Clara Dealberto came up with the idea after reading a story about a boar wreaking havoc in Germaine, a village in the Marne.
‘Nancy’ is perhaps the largest and most famous of these, but Ms Dealberto found numerous similar examples.
Other names popular in both France and Anglophone countries which are shared between places and people include Suzy, Amy and Lucy.
She has placed her map on social media:
Ms Dealberto, who works at Le Point, defined some of the ground rules for her map.
Firstly, no towns or villages prefixed with ‘Saint’ are included as “this would make it too easy”. Many French people, especially those in the older generations, have a Christian name associated with a certain Saint, and many villages are named after religious figures.
Ad
Secondly, the name had to appear on the French birth registry at least 1,000 times since 1900.
Read more: What girls’ and boys’ names are trending for babies in France?
‘Anyone can do it’
Ad
Ms Dealberto told France3she “loves any games based on geography and place names,” which inspired her to make the map.
She also took inspiration from Georges Perec's novel La Disparition, famous for not once using the letter ‘e’.
Read more: French baby named ‘Canard’ is heir to tragic but proud family history
If your name does not appear on the map above but you would like to know if you share it with a town, you can find a list of all 35,000-odd communes in France here. The data can be downloaded as an excel spreadsheet and the command search function ‘ctrl + F’ used to see if your name is there.
The list is compiled by the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (often shortened to INSEE) which also holds the data used by Ms Dealberto to search for the prevalence of certain baby names since 1900.
It took Ms Dealberto around an hour of research before then compiling the map.
Related articles
Map: What are the most popular baby names in your part of France?
Frenchman’s bid to remove the shame of having the name Kevin
