Are there rules in France about naming your child?

Question

I heard that there was a law in France that made it so French parents had to choose their childs name from an approved name list. Is this true? Could you give me a source?

Answer 1

trust me there is no special list for parents to choose their babies' name. you should see what crazy names exist in France! For example Fleur (Flowers) or Myrtille (Blueberry). why do you think of names as crazy as those ones?? (just kidding lol)

good luck

Answer 2

There are no legal a priori constraints on the choice of names although there were laws in the past that limited that names that could be given to those of Catholic saints.

While there is no longer an official list of allowable names the official registrar of births may take exception to a name and refer it to the local public prosecutor who may choose to refer the matter to the local court. The court may then reject the  names. This rarely happens and when it does it is because there is a concern that the name  may expose the child to ridicule.

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Answer 3

With all people coming from everyone and living here, you can imagine the bizarre, crazy, special names we can see.

Exemple, my niece (french-algerian) is named Shaïna, that is unknown here and in Algeria too, and no problems.

I worked in a school for children about 3 to 6 years old and i can say you, 50% of children got unknown names (jeyann, dayan, césar (yes we know it lol), fawaz, ... etc)

Answer 4

This legal rule was valid until the early '90's.. The name had to be found in the catholic liturgical calendar...Now however any name not considered to cause the child to be ridiculed in any way is accepted.. (For example, if your last name were Renault, they would not allow your daughter to be called Megane (a name of one of the car models).

However some fairly ridiculous names are accepted! I know of a child named "Ceegee"...her mother named her after the character in the TV series Baywatch who was called by her initials...C.J. (in french the J is pronounced G).

Also due to immigration all foreign names are now accepted too.

Certain non-french names have become the fashion, for example for boys ENZO is "in"...it is a shortened form of the italian Lorenzo. And JADE, name of the semi-precious stone is also in vogue for girls..

Answer 5

Until 1993, all names had to be chosen from an official list. Today, public prosecutors can still reject a child's name.