(no subject)

[jessiac.livejournal.com]

I do French A-level at school, and we have been studying some really interesting books over the past two years. Anyway, two particular books that we are studying, Andromaque and Phedre, by Racine, have some truly beautiful Frenchified classical Greek names. The girls' names in particular are very nice.



Aricie - my favourite of all the names (female). I think it stands for Ariadne.

Ismene (accent grave on the first 'e') - name of one of the 'confidants' in the book. Female name. reminds pleasantly of 'Imogen'.

Oenone - a bit odd, but quite a nice sound and very unusual. Also a female name, confidant to Phedre.

Hermione - greek as well as shakesperian - who ever knew? not a great fan of this name but still quite nice.



The boys are rather less underrepresented, and there are a couple of boys names which I actually think work better of girls. But anyway..



Oreste - lover of Hermione. I think this works better on girls!

Hector - fairly standard boy's name. not a fan. (dead husband of Andromaque)

Pyrrus - well, I suppose it's 'original', if nothing else. (he is the King and lover of Andromaque)

Theramene - not a fan of this for either girls or boys. (confidant of Hippolyte) But better than Hippolyte!



I have also become a fan of random French words for names. Some sound really nice. I would never actually name any children with these names, but it's interesting to see.


Ameliorera - past historic of ameliorer (to make better). I think this sounds quite pretty. Sounds a bit like Amelia.

Ferme - a little like Fearn. Present of fermer (to close).

Clavier - keyboard, in French. Perhaps for a boy?

Meillure - 'the best', Feminine. another nice girl's name.

Fleuve - 'A river'. Could be a boy's name or a girl's name.

Ouvert - 'Open' - another boy's name? 'Overte' for a girl?



What other random words make good names? Sorry for the random and rather disjointed nature of this post; I've been quite ill recently.

Comments

[sonneta.livejournal.com]

Hermione's nice, although I didn't figure out how to say it until the book explicitly spelled it out. Heh.

Fleuve is pretty.

[lacuna.livejournal.com]

I think Ameliorera is a bit of a mouthful when using the French pronunciation, particularly if you're pronouncing the 'er' at the end of the verb as "ay" rather than "er". The past historic obviously isn't a spoken tense and it's a bugger to pronounce! I can understand it working if you read it as Amelior-air-a, though, with an English twist.

Interestingly - or not! - my older sister's middle name is Fedra, which I suppose is an Anglicised spelling of Phaedra. It's funny: she doesn't like it and I'm not so keen on it, yet it sounds like the most beautiful name when my dad (who chose it) says it.

[jessiac.livejournal.com]

I have to say that the sound of 'Phedre' is very nice. Sort of a feminised Fred. Ameliorera is a mouthful...but I really like the look of it. And you could get some really good nicknames out of it. Possibly by cutting out the 'rer' bit and leaving it as Ameliora would be better, although it's not strictly French, I suppose. You know, it's a realy pity that the Past Historic isn't used more often; it's just as simple to use as the Passe Compose and it sounds so much more flowing.

[sensualquills.livejournal.com]

I LIKE HERMINONE. THE OTHERS I CAN'T PRONOUNCE!

[xanya.livejournal.com]

Ha, "ferme" is also the word for farm, I'm pretty sure (already forgetting my French, sadly). There are some lovely ones here - I especially like Ismene. Ameliorera is definitely a mouthful! My name's Amelia so it makes me happy, though.

I can't really think of any random French words that would make good names, sorry!

[jessiac.livejournal.com]

Doesn't have to be French - any old random word that has a nice sound to it will do!

[xcuore.livejournal.com]

Ouvert and Ferme are weird names to name your child.
I like Joli pretty much :)
and i love the sound of the wordgroup; tir a l'arc (archery)

[jessiac.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they are pretty weird - I just like the sound of them! Jolie, with an 'e', is a really nice name. I would name my kid that if it wasn't for the fact that they'd probably go to France one day.

[threnody.livejournal.com]

If you ever name your kids after random French words, at least give them a decent middle name. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a French/German/Polish/Russian/whatever person come up to you and say, "Hi, my name is Telephone." You'd die laughing, and the person would be embarrassed. It's a dumb idea.

Not to mention that English speaking people have a hell of a time with French sounds in the first place. No one would be able to pronounce any of those properly. And the Greek ones are pronounced differently than they look. Any kid with one of these names would be condemned to sounding out their name to every person they met.

[jessiac.livejournal.com]

I would never name my kids any of these names (with the possible exception of Aricie)! I just think they sound and look quite pretty. I'm very much against Speshul and Oreegenill names.

Just brainstorming on the kind of random nouns and other words which you would use for your kids if they didn't mean something else in another language.

[naturalgoddess.livejournal.com]

I just found a name you might like, I met a little girl with it yesterday : Vive. I think it would be oh so cute!!