French/ British Baby name

[Steoh1]

Hi,

This is my first post on here, so I hope I'm posting in the right place.

My French wife and I (I am British) are due to have our first baby in July. We live in London and intend to stay in the UK for the long term.

It will be a boy and we're in the process of trying to figure out a name. Although my wife is happy with a British, or non French name (she loves Noah) I think it would be great for the baby to have a French name. We need to consider what would work well in both countries.

Does anyone have any good suggestions?

Nathan
Stefan
Louis

This is hard. Loads of french boys’ names sound very girly in English. Or just plain weird. Noah is Noé is French. Noa also exists but I don’t know if it’s a boy’s name too or if it’s only used for girls.

Thomas?

Dominic

I know of an English boy who has been raised in France called Sebastian. Known as Seb.

Sebastian - I know quite a few who have parents that are English / Spanish or English / French.

Phillip, Thomas, Luke, Richard could all work too.

I know an Étienne being raised in the Uk. Like that.
Louis is quite common. In a good way.

Buy a French baby name book and look for names that work well in English too. Or look up the top 100 and work through them together.

Be aware that she might not want a French name if it's going to be mangled in English every day. People living in a different country do often prefer to choose a name in the new language for this reason. It's not quite the same name if it's being pronounced in the "wrong" way (which is inevitable, nobody's going to put on a French accent just to say someone's name).

Sebastian, Patrick, Benjamin.

Sebastian, Quentin, Paul, Andre, and even Oliver

Thank you all for your suggestions so far. I have always liked Louis, however some people have said that it could end up being ponounced Lewis by English people.

Sebastian is also a good one, but its already taken in my family.

I'm of the opinion that if we go for a French name it needs to be one that can't be easily converted to/ mistaken for its English version, otherwise it kind of defeats the objective.

If we did end up going for a non French one, I do also like Noah, however I'm a little concerned thats its too popular. It does seem to be one of the top 2 names in the UK atm. That said, someone pointed out that the top names list are a bit misrepresentative, as these days there are so many names out there that, although a name can be ranked highly, it may not actually have been assigned to a high percentage of babies born.

Jerome

I like Louis (Loo-ee would be the standard pronunciation so I wouldn't worry)
Also Noah was in the top 20 boys names in france last year.
Felix
Claude
Leo (would be Lee-oh in English though rather than Lay-oh)
Adam
Antoine
Samuel
Blaise
Oscar
Tristan
Marc
Matisse
Pierre

Anton?

Carl?

Remy
Leon
Fèlix
Louis
Gregory

Claude

@Frankley

Jerome

Nice but unfortunately already taken in the family.

Was going to suggest Sebastian

I've got a French friend who has an English husband. Their boys are called Arthur, Louis and Jerome.

Another French friend with an English husband has 4 boys called Antoine, Louis, Alex and Felix.

@candycane222

Anton?

Yeah like that

Boris, but pronounced Boree

@EmmaGrundyForPM

I've got a French friend who has an English husband. Their boys are called Arthur, Louis and Jerome.

Another French friend with an English husband has 4 boys called Antoine, Louis, Alex and Felix.

I do like Louis. Reminds me of Louis Theroux who I'm a big fan of

Thierry?