Less obvious French names

[Cluelessmouse]

We’re Both half French but born and raised in Uk where DC will also be raised.

between us we also have Middle Eastern, Scandinavian and Celtic ties.
we’re looking for a name, that works in the UK but isn’t very popular (which I would probably define as not in the top 100 or maybe even top 150 names)

so far we like
Remy
Rami
Blaize
Nour
Laith
Ambroise
Nazaire

but non of them are quite right.
We dont know if we’re having a bit or girl yet, but I quite like unisex or masculine sounding names for girls

Remy is lovely
Romy for girl

Fabrice.

I hadnt considered Camille at all but actually love it.
blaise seems very hit or miss which I think is part of my issue with it

great to know about the ette names being old fashioned thank you to that poster.
and thank you to the pointers to the names from Brittany

Noor and Remy are DHs first choices but I do think theyre getting much more popular
and I worry about noor sounding like no in a strong accent that’s not too far from here!

I also wonder if we can mix name origins when we have dc2 so for example a Noor and a Remy

My friend has 2 DC one with a very Irish name and one with a very Indian name. Sounded odd at first with 2 names of different origins but honestly after a while it sounds totally normal as it’s their names that’s all.

I like both of these.

Romy is Boris Johnson’s baby girl’s name. If that bothers you!

Etienne

My DP is Ivorian so we wanted french names (although we didn't in the end) but my top girls names were Anaïs, Maéva and Genevieve.

Thibault

It's not quite clear what your criteria are here.

Does the name need to actually work in France, or do you just need it to work in the UK with a nod to both your origins?

Your current list is pretty varied, so it's difficult to get a sense of what you're looking for.

Remy - in French it would have the accent - Rémy

Rami - the only person I know with this name is Lebanese

I would probably split the difference with these two and go for Rémi.

Blaize - never met one in France, the only one I've ever met was a British girl with quite wacky parents

Nour - you'd probably be more likely to meet one of these in France, but they'd have parents of Arab origin

Laith - the French won't be able to pronounce this

Ambroise - very old school, never met one

Nazaire - very old school, never met one

Apart from Nour I'd say these were all boys' names. I'm struggling to think of any unisex names used in France other than Camille and Dominique - and even Camille is almost always used for girls these days. Unisex names isn't really something they go in for.

If it helps, this is what the French people I know have called their babies recently:

Gabriel x 2
Noé - boy
Albane - girl
Blanche - girl
Sixtine - girl
Théophane - boy
Wandrille - boy, think this one is veeery unusual
Bianca
Appolline - girl
Hugo
Henri
Esmée
Alessio - boy
Imany - girl
Taejann - boy
Madeleine
Jeanne
Louis x 2
Marceau - boy
Céleste
Joseph
Alice

Some of these are top 10 names in France, some are much more unusual.

French-sounding names are currently much less popular in France than English sounding ones. The top 10 names includes things like Noah and Arthur and Lucas for boys and Emma and Mia and Rose for girls, so not that different to the UK really.

@babyjellyfish I suppose half the issue is we don’t know our own criteria!
it doesn’t need to work in France, but equally I don’t want it to sound weird to French speakers. It doesn’t even need to be French, we have ties to other places, that was just the most obvious one, we’d like it to be a nod to one of the areas of the world mentioned in the op.
it doesn’t need to be unisex, I just find those are names I like normally like Remy / Rémi for girls.

Thank you for all the ideas so far everyone, you’ve given me a lot to think about!

Nadege

Manon
Josephine

I don't think I've ever come across Rémy or Rémi for a girl in France, so I'm not sure whether French speakers would see it as a unisex name.

Amandine
Aurelie
Cecile
Celeste
Celine
Daniel
Genevieve
Hugo
Luc
I also love Nour but I get your concern about pronunciation!

I have taught a couple of girls called Fleur. One did have French parents.

Rémy definitely for boys in France, never met a girl.
I currently teach one boy Camille and four girls.

There have only ever been three times when I couldn’t predict the sex of a child from their name in France : boy Camille, boy Jude, and boy Lilian (although a French person would have got that right, it was unexpected for me). Unisex names are really not a thing.

I would definitely expect a Nour or a Rami to be North African.

Amelie
Chloe
Sophie
Fleur

Louis
Francois

Blaize sounds very similar to the French equivalent of the F-word. Just FYI.

Boys names:
Loïc
Rémy
Etienne
Thibault
Romain
Joël
Gaël

Girls names:
Laure
Romy
Noémie
Manon
Romane
Mila
Anouk

I've never met a Nour who wasn't of North African heritage so wouldn't use that personally.

@mocktail its used in the Middle Eastern country one of us is from

@mogwa let’s rule that out now then!! This is why mumsnet is so helpful! …we may have to run some of these names past family I suppose, we were hoping to keep it to ourselves, but it may be safer!

i really love loic

Claude
Roxane
Yseult
Gilles
Lazare
Olympe

Ulysse

Unisex name- Sasha

Bonne
Yolande
Girard
Cassin