(no subject)

[ms-cucumber.livejournal.com]

I was looking around Wikipedia and came upon an entry on a president of France in the '70s. His name:

Valéry Marie René Giscard d'Estaing

It's kind of nice, but also kind of girly. :)

Comments

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

The Marie is girly... But the other names are masculine... Valery is Masculine and Russian... Rene is French masculine... And Giscard I believe is masculine... I believe d'Estaing is the surname.

[ms-cucumber.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but they're like Valerie and Renee.

Hey, I'm tired. It's almost 1 a.m. Cut me some slack. :)

[sarahrose.livejournal.com]

Valerie was a male/unisex name at one point. Rene too. That one still kinda is.

And a lot of French names are girly, lol.

[krosp.livejournal.com]

Haha I agree with you - I know they were guys names, but to have that many female-like names in one person's name is quite funny. It could have been Valery Rene Jean-Sebastien or something.... but no, it had to be Marie.

[tokossel.livejournal.com]

quite a few french guys have the name 'marie' in their name, like jean-marie...haha. i used to think that was SO weird as a kid.
i knew a french guy called lilian.

[sundayuniverse.livejournal.com]

marie is a unisex name in france.
rene is a male name in most parts of europe (in germany, too, and i have never met a girl named rene but tons of boys. it is so normal to name a boy rene in non-english speaking countries)
valerie is unisex. i know a boy called valerie and a girl called valerie.

[turabiannights.livejournal.com]

Definitely girly to English speakers, but they're all perfectly unisex in France, as far as I know. Valéry feminizes to Valérie, and René to Renée, I believe. Variants of Mary as middle names for children of either sex is a long-standing Roman Catholic tradition.

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

It's very French. I actually sort of like the use of Marie in boy's names, but for some reason, it just sounds better in French. ^^

The best combos I've seen, I think, are Donatien-Marie and Marie-Joseph. I just like them for some reason.