1200+ French Names (with Meanings and Popularity)

Regal and ancient feeling, Jacques has been declining in popularity in its native France, but in the UK, it saw a surprising revival in 2022. Jumping from somewhere around the #2500 mark straight to #600, it was seven times more popular than in 2021.

A particularly beautiful member of the Orane/Oriana clan, Oriane is the first name of a major character in Proust's In Search Of Lost Time, the Duchesse de Guermantes.

In the US, this spelling is less common than mid-century favorite Jeffrey, and it has faded from popularity faster. This more British spelling is the usual form for historical figures like Geoffrey Chaucer and the Welsh historian Geoffrey of Monmouth, and as such it may feel more rooted and enduring.

Fans of the classic French designer would now more fashionably choose Coco.

Yannick originated as a diminutive of Yann, the Breton form of John. However, it has since become popular as a standalone name in its native region of Brittany, as well as in France as a whole, where it peaked at #31 in 1973-4. It remains well within the Top 500 in France to this day, and has also seen regular use in Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Quebec.

Fifi is a perfect name -- for a French poodle. But Fifi may seem more child-friendly as names like Coco and Lulu rise. Fifi in its fluffiness also balances the seriousness of such full names as Josephine or Federica.

Though it's used for boys, most non-French people would hear it as a girls’ name. Most would be surprised to learn that Rene has always charted in the US Top 1000 for boys.

With Isabel getting so popular, parents are searching for new varieties of the name, and Isabeau is one that makes a lovely French twist.

Arlette is a French form of the Germanic name Herleva, which was the name of the mother of William the Conqueror. It peaked in France in the mid-1930s, but you might be surprised to learn that in the US, it's only just beginning to catch on now. It entered the US Top 1000 for the first time in 2018, and has dipped in and out in the years since then.

Long-standing French name that retains a feminine, fragile, and shell-like image.

A rarely heard--even in France--name, most prominent as the third name of Charlotte Marie Pomeline Casiraghi, the daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco and granddaughter of Grace Kelly.

More often used in Britain than here, where most names ending in ville fall into the unthinkable class, this might make an exception via fans of the musical Neville Brothers.

This courtly old Southern name has several cool male bearers: NFL player Courtney Brown, British jazz musician Courtney Pine, and Barbados-born economist Courtney Blackman, to name but a few.

Pauline had its moment of glory almost a century ago, when movie audiences were thrilling to the silent serial The Perils of Pauline; it's a sweet and gentle name that just might be due for reconsideration. Off the list since the late 1990s, Pauline was a Top 50 name from around 1908 to 1930.

Slimmed down spelling is well-established and makes an old name more modern, for better and worse. Katie Couric spells her Elinor's name this way.

Old saints' and popes' name that went to France in the 1920s with the Russian Ballets Russes; in its Russian form, Sergei, it retains an artistic, almost effete air.

Luc is the sleeker Gallic cousin of Luke, and if you want to know the difference between their pronunciations, just watch Kevin Kline's hilarious description in the film French Kiss. Peter Gabriel and Sean Patrick Thomas picked this version for their sons.

The rise of the the various Isabel names may give a boost to this variation, which has a sunny, springtime feel.

Only if you're an aviation buff or seriously addicted to popcorn.

A dashing French surname name most famously borne by Henry David Thoreau, an American naturalist, writer and philosopher who influenced such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. The most common modern American pronunciation is "thor-OH", with emphasis on the final syllable, although Thoreau himself pronounced it "THOR-oh".