Quote:
Originally posted by Raya
Or maybe you could choose something a little bit more traditional...
I like Jonathan or Joseph, Michael (except I always spell it the girls way)
There are so many possibilitits...
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Joseph ! In the province of Quebec !
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
OK. Time for a little french canadian (Quebec) name primer here.
It's only been about 20 or so years that french canadian parents stopped naming all of their sons Joseph and all of their daughters Marie in Quebec. The habit is still there strongly and most people who gets baptized gets it still. francophone Quebec overwhelming religious affilication is Catholic. Other christian churches are almost inexistant as far as the french canadian population is concerned. You will find many other churches, but all from non-french-canadian.
A typical french canadian name is
Joseph-Louis-André-Pierre Tremblay.
In everyday's life, he's called Pierre.
first names than ends with
Joseph-something-something-Jean-something
like
Jean-Francois, Jean-Claude, Jean-Pierre, Jean-Luc, Jean-Louis get used as everyday's first names.
Jean is french for John, a very common male name, never used for female. English people always think that Jean is a woman. It leads to amusing situations quite frequently, when outside of Quebec or Canada.
For women, all their names start with Marie.
Marie-Lina-Antoinette-Louise
Some names have five distinct names.
Typically, what comes between the Joseph / Marie and the usual first name are names of significant elders of the family, or the godfather and godmother, or the name of a rich aunt or uncle that you want to flatter.
French Canadians are surprized to learn that the anglo-canadian or American John Smith has only John Smith as a name on his birth certificate.
We use no middle initials either, obviously.
In the rare case where you want to give the child Marie or Joseph as a usual first name, you put it at the end of the long list of first names.
Another common name for women is Anne-Marie
A few men are named Jean-Marie or André-Marie (odly enough, AFAIK, no men are named Marie-André). This is an endless source of peer-torments for the young boy, just as if you'd name one of your boy Sue. But it forges the character, the story say...
In Quebec, if you ask a guy his name and he replies Joseph with a grin, it's like he responded "John Doe" but with the difference that he did not lie to you. Considering the immigration and the new change in mores, I'd say that at least 30% of the men in Quebec have Joseph as one of their legal names.
All our first names are legal to use apparently, even if the habit is only to use the last.