Saintly dilemma - mainly for girls

[Lulabell]

Dh and I are trying to come up with names for the baby (not due til October, so we have a while), but are a bit stuck by our own criteria.

Dh is French and I'm English, so we'd ideally like names that are pronounceable for both sides of the family, and that can be used in both countries as we're not sure which one we'll be living in. On top of that, dh has stipulated that it has to be a Saint's name, and on the French calendar of Saints.

We'd always planned to use Béatrice or Héloïse, but they seem to be suggested all the time on here, which makes me think they're going to appear a lot in the near future. And slightly more of a problem is that people on here seem to associate Héloïse with the C**v word. So, we're thinking of saving those up for a couple of years, and trying a different name.

I absolutely love the name Aria, which would work except that there's no saint; the saint is Ariadne. Can I put Ariadne on a birth certificate, or is it just too ridiculous?
Also, I read Classics at university, so I think everyone will assume I've chosen a poncey Classical name.

Any other suggestions for unusual and attractive Saints please?

Thanks so much

I meant chav, but didnt want to offend anyone. I hate it as a word.

Lol sunshine, I knew what you meant

is there a gabriella?

I love Dominique have met and worked with some lovely people with this name. Not sure if there is a St Dominique, but there are several St Dominic's.

Gabrielle and Dominique are both good thanks, it's fine to use the feminine forms of male saints.

Thanks so much everyone, this is giving me loads to work with.

I think it's a nice idea to pick a Saint's name since in France they have their Saint's day as an extra sort of birthday celebration replete with presents, if I recall correctly.

Therese would be nice and there's a Saint Theresa which might be close enough for him?

Really? Heloise? Well I never. Thought it was right classy myself (adjusts burberry miniskirt).

I was surprised too balloonslayer, but I've seen it said on several name threads now Maybe it's without the H, but how would people know unless you went around with a badge?

Allie, spot on, and dh is very pro the extra celebration element I like Thérèse, especially with Tessa as a nickname.

I'm English, my DP is French and we live in France.

Our DD is Flora.

My sister's half-French DD is Lucie.

There's a St Amarin - what about Amarine? I love Severine

French saints for October. This website has a whole year of French saints' days. There are some gorgeous names here. Just from the first few days -- Ariel, Melodie, Muriel, Therese, Ruth, Sybille, Aure, Berenice, Orianne, Sarah, Camelia, Capucine, Chloe, Eglantine, Daphne, Fleur de Beaulieu...

October has a few heavy hitters of the Catholic Church on the English/Irish/ US calendar too -- Therese of the Child Jesus and Teresa of Avila, Our Lady of the Rosary, Guardian Angels, Margaret Mary...

How about Celine? It is a popular name in France but not known over here.

I like Ariadne though!

what about Claire?
it works well in both languages, is a great saint, and is surprisingly not very popular at the moment despite being a great name.

I also love C�©cile, Anna, H�©lo�¯se and B�©atrice.

at peasandbeans interesting spellings

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, some of them are superb.

meilleursprenoms is a great site mathanxiety, but I hadn't spotted the calendar lists, thanks!

Can't here Celine without thinking Dion not sure about that lol

Thanks all

I particularly like that they're copywrited lol

copyrighted even

oops, forgot to preview, and tried to use French accents to spell French names...

lulabell: do you have a list of boys names? We need a name for dc4 and have the same problems/criteria as you.. (husband french, I'm English, want a name which works in both languages..)

Oooh this will be me in a couple of years (French DF and we live in France)

I want to avoid accents so the name works in both countries.

Have to say we have a friend who recently called her DD Ines - and a lot of people found it to be very poncy...but it might have been cos now she, her DH and her DD all have rhyming first names...and all 3 rhyme with their surname! (quite an achievement)

This page has the months -- you click on whatever month you want. Wonder why the October page doesn't allow for navigation?

The celebration of a saint day is done in Russia too. On the child's birthday the mother gets a special acknowledgment.

peas, we've been stuck on boys names too, but I think that's because their a lot less universal than the girls names. I think in England we're quite used to French girls names with French spellings - Sophie, Louise, Marie, Elise etc, but it doesn't work as well with boys - Jean, Jules, Mathis, Antoine etc.

Our list has:
Nathanael (I've always loved Nathaniel, so just changed the spelling)
Killian
Gabriel
Valérian
Théodore
Vincent (after Cassel, who I love)
Jason

Alexander would have been there but there was a unresolvable disagreement over the ending

Also Théophile, Thibault and Benoît, none of which work in English.

here are the top french names, admittedly only for 2006, but better than nought.

Weird, my accents worked til now, and I previewed sorry about that.

Fluffydonkey at your friends' ability to co-ordinate their names, that's quite spectacular.

Thanks for that math, February has some lovely names.

thanks Lulabell!I think that is exactly our problem for boys'names too; whilst french girls names can sound very pretty in English, French boys names tend to sound rather effeminate.

So far we have a Joseph, but I'm amazed how few people in England seem to be able to manage a French "J" at the beginning.

We have also had Samuel and Benjamin as choices for DD1 and 2 but I've gone off those a bit now.

I like Benoit, but it would really have to shortened to Ben to work, I like Nathanael too.

I see that you can manage to do the copyright names too