Boy name that works in French and English

[FollowTheNorth]

Hi all, and sorry for the long message!

I am pregnant with our second boy and we are really struggling with name ideas… Husband and I are both French, living in Scotland with no intention to leave, so our sons will likely be raised here, but we regularly go to France to visit family and friends, so we need a name that works in both languages. Four our first son, we instantly loved Leo. It works in most European languages, pronounced fairly similarly in English and French, soft sounding… but for our second one we feel like we have exhausted all the forum threads! We keep turning around the same names, and most names we like are already taken by close friends/relatives (think Theo, Noah, Paul etc.)

We have two names we really like, but they are more French than broadly European and I am worried this would just mean he would have to spell/repeat his name all the time. May I have your opinion on:

• Timothée (we much prefer it to Timothy, which we feel is a bit old fashion now in the UK). The American actor Timothée Chalamet is becoming quite popular so it may help making the French version of the name be more known here too… also he could use Tim but I feel Tim is a bit old fashion too. What do you think?
• Gael, which is pronounced Gah-el. It is our favourite choice, and people would instantly know how to pronounce or spell it in France but I am worried it will be read as Gail (one syllable) all the time here. As Gail is clearly a feminine name, it could cause teasing at school… but am I pushing it? Would it actually be ok? My name is very French, but sounds like a more English name and people always get my name wrong (like even in emails, people respond and ‘correct’ my name like I couldn’t spell my own name). It’s quite annoying so not sure I want to inflict that to my son… but we love the name so much!

our other ideas are Nathanael, Bastian, and Zachary but we are not 100% convinced yet. We are not big fans of William, Harry, Charlie, Jack or other names in the top 100… either already taken by close friends or family or we just don’t like them.

any help would be much appreciated!! We had a name for a girl before I got pregnant with our first son… it would have been much easier 😆

You did @Trez1510 .

Oh I love Vincent @ssodabreadjam

My apologies @Trez1510. I misunderstood your intention. I thought when you mentioned a French parent - and how nice her pronunciation of the name was - that you believed Marek to be a French name. It does indeed work phonetically in English. (I'm afraid my French isn't good enough to know how it would be pronounced in France.)

@Marynotsocontrary Thank you.

It sounded really nice to me, but I couldn't recreate it phonetically here though - rubbish as that sort of thing!

I hope the OP finds something that works for her and her son!

Sorry haven't read the full thread but has anyone suggested Sol?
PS. I realise it is not French.

Charles
Anthony
Michael

@followthenorth as a fellow French in the UK I understand your pain! For our second DC we had a surprise and I was really struggling to find a second boy's name. In the end we had a girl so I got to use a name I truly love.

Some names we had on our list, or that I have come across in other French-English families:
Owen, Sebastian, Leon, Harrison, Elliot, Louis, Raphael, Gabriel, Axel, Tom, Nicolas.

I also loved Maël and Gael, but I did worry people would struggle to pronounce them.

I think Timothée is a really good option though!

Hope this helps!

Louis

Henry/Henri

Xavier
Sylvan
Louis
Theo
Leon

We don't talk about him!

Emmanuel / nn Mani
Lucien
Luc
Raphaël
Zacharie

I am English, my husband is French, we live in France, and we had this problem when finding a name for our DS! Off the top of my head, some names which don't have massively different French/English pronunciations :
Timeo
Carl/Carlo
Luca
Patrick
Matteo
Raphael
Tom
Yann
Luc
Nico
Paul
Samuel
Jonah
Eddy/Eddie
Daniel
Teddy
Victor
William
Marc
Sebastien
John
Aaron
Noah

Oh and Max (or Maxime if you want a long version)

Ronan, Roman, Louis, Gaspard, Oscar, Arthur, Killian, Pierre, Lucas, Augustin, Octave, Martin - all very popular in my primary school.

We have a 1 year old Marcel, I just love it. I am British and husband Mexican so Marcelo would have been more typical but I just really liked Marcel and people seem to really react positively to it (obviously could just be being polite).

Also love: Emile, Gael, Vincent.

Leon

Also if you love a name, just go for it. We live in France and my dc have gaelic names. The pronunciation is different but it didn't bother dc at all.

Marc, Luc, Jean- Marc,

Joel

I think people would be less likely to mispronounce Gaël if you spelled it with the trema, although it depends how educated/ cosmopolitan the neighbourhood is. Some people are more familiar with foreign European names than others.

Names I like:
Jérôme/Jerome
Yves (probably combined with another name, e.g. Jean-Yves)
Martin
Augustin
Raphaël
Max

I would avoid Xavier, unless you can put up with the English pronunciation which cuts out the x sound from beginning and makes it sound like a z. Would also avoid Timothée because, even with Chalamet's popularity, it's often seen as a girl's name in English (because of the ée ending).

Hi Everyone,

Thanks again so much for the massive response, it is super helpful. Sorry I wasn't able to repond earlier, I will try to give better feedbacks on all the names proposed.. Also, we are in Edinburgh, so pretty used to foreign names, and we have no intention to move to a super rural/remote area. So:

Alexandre, Matthieu AND Matthew, Stephane, Lucien, Louis, Gabriel, Thomas/Tom, Nicholas/Nicolas, Paul, David, Phillipe, Pierre, Francois, Marc, Rémi, Étienne, Oliver, Vincent, Tristan, Mathéo, Thibault, Morgan, Theo, Ronan, Noah, Romain, Simon, Arthur, Augustin are names that we can't use due to family/close friends already 'using' them. Gutted as there are at least 5 names we would have loved!

Patrick (I like it but we know way too many Patricks and they are all over 50 yrs old in France) , Robert, Jacques, Serge, Gilbert, Jean-Paul, George, Yannick, Emile (although I think it is making a come back), Albert, Joël, Henri, Guy, Dominique, Gérard, Thierry, André, Yvan, Yves, Gilles, Daniel, Claude, Marcel, Denis are names that may sound lovely in English but are sadly very old fashionned in French, like VERY popular in the 1950-60s and I personnally can't see these names on a baby now. (Which also means, there are quite a few used by our respective uncles and parents' friends)

Edouard, Nathan, Lucas, Fabian, Wilfried, Elliot, Raphael, Maxime/Max, Eric, Victor, Bruno, Luca(s)/Luc, Samuel (LOVE it, but big no from husband), Emmanuel (nice name but way too associated with current French president), Arlo, Loïc, Xavier, Hugo, Kevin, Noël, Beau, Oscar, Axel, Jules, Clement, Stuart (although it would be a nice reference to the Auld Alliance indeed!), William, Christophe, Killian, Jeremy, Huw/Hugh, Adrian, Jonathan, Laurence, Gaspard, Quentin, Charles, Anthony, John, Aaron, are names that we (or just me or my husband) don't like, some because we just don't like how they sound, some because they remind us of someone we really don't like or also because in France they have been overused or the pronounciation sounds nice in one language but not the other.

We like Ewan a lot, but feels it is too scottish for us, and the French will never manage lol. I like Timeo/Timo, but my husband not so much and we prefer Timothée a lot more.

We are still considering, Sebastian/Bastian, Benjamin, Zachary, Yann, Martin (but the English pronounciation sounds like an old French female name... a reversed Gael in a way lol). We are not over Gael/Gaël and Thimothée, they are by far our favourite choices. 4 months left to think about it!

@CarmensGarden thanks, I will check the Miranda series
@Fink using the trema is actually a very good idea. It may not help people to pronounce it correcly, but it might help stating 'this is not Gail'...

Thanks again for the huge brainstorming!

Zacharie (instead of Zachary)

Joseph?

Antoine?

Nazaire? (Do people still name their kids this because I have a couple of these in my family tree)

Does Jeremy works in French?

Hmm, not Jeremy, maybe Cedric or Jory?