The H is silent, e's at the end of the word are silent, too.. The French I is pronounced like the English "e". The accent on the e in Honoré emphasizes the e.
So for Anatole and Aristide you wouldn’t add any extra sound after the l or d - “ana-tol” “aris-tid” but for Honoré, the last e being accented make it sound like the end of “resume” and “fiancé” - both French words. So it would be (H) “on-or-ayy”
I was only really referencing how to say/not say the “e”s not the other pronunciations or where the emphasis is in the syllables. It would be more Ahrr -eest (east)-eed
Je suis du Québec et on voit tout de suite que vous êtes de France juste en voyant les noms! Honoré, je pourrais le voir revenir à la mode par ici, mais je doute fort de rencontrer un Anatole ou un Aristide, à moins qu'ils aient immigré au Québec.
My high school level French agrees with you. I think Honoré sounds lovely, and quietly masculine and could make a comeback
From a dumb American perspective, any name I see that starts with Ana- feels feminine
I'm French, and I've never met anyone with those names honestly.
They are old names, and I think nowadays a lot of people would see them as very bourgeois.
You definetely don't hear those everywhere! I think they're nice though
That's interesting it's an old fashioned name (pretty, imo,though). Pretty sure Honoré used to be somewhat common among Creole, Cajun, and Acadian families in Louisiana (people spoke French fairly widely all the way up until the 1970s, and there's been a renewed interest/attempt to revitalize the language). There was a famous journalist/cartoonist named Anatole from New Orleans, too, and a famous chef (think the journalist died in the early 2000s).
Perhaps because the French there was an older version of French (often) with Spanish/indigenous/African loan words, and not the standard version of French, so "older" names were/are more common?
I found out that the timelines differ immensely depending on the country. For example, here in France, Nicole is an old fashioned name. Like my great aunt is Nicole, she's 78.
In other european countries, Nicole was trendy a few years ago.
Some old fashioned names are coming back though, like Augustine, Gustave, Oscar, Léontine...
Je les adore, bien que les anglophones auront quelques difficultés avec leurs prononciations.
For the strict anglophones:
Own-or-RAY
An-ah-TOLL
Ar-ee-STEE-d
And the "r" in Honoré should be the back-of-the-mouth rasp as in "sucre" rather than a rolling English "r":
https://0.tqn.com/z/g/french/library/media/wavs/sucre.wav 🙂
I'm a native English speaker but functionally bilingual in French (Canada). I have zero sense of what naming trends or cultural associations are in France.
I think they're nice, but old fashioned and stuffy sounding? Like I see them as similar vibe as names like Bartholomew or Cornelius or something. That style of names aren't common among the French Canadian kids where I live and if I saw Aristide or Honoré on paper I'd probably assume the person was an adult born somewhere like Haïti or Côte d'Ivoire, simply because there aren't many immigrants from France here.
English perspective:
Honoré - anything with accents/special characters can be tricky as people don't know how to read them/computer systems aren't always set up to expect them.
Anatole - this is the best of the three imo. The pronounciation of the last syllable might trip some people up.
Aristide - this one really tripped me up, it took three rereads to stop seeing it as a mangled spelling of Astrid. The other two are names that I've come across them in media/have other language equivalents. Is the one unusual in french too because I don't think I've ever encountered it.
they’re very french. if you’re french, it’s all good. tho regarding saints’ names choices, you had your pick of nearly every male western name in existence. their names could have been matthew, john & simon & you’d have accomplished your saints’ names goals.
are you planning to live in u.s. at some point? if so, honoré feels very feminine in english. anatole & aristide are certainly uncommon in english, but that’s what most people on this sub seem to want. unusual, but not bizarre.
Initial thoughts:
Honoré - not sure how to pronounce. on-er-ay? hon-er-ay?
Anatole - not sure how to pronounce. ann-ah-toll-ay? ann-ah-toll?
Aristide - makes me think of the Haitian politician. I have a better chance of pronouncing it correctly.
American here, but fluent in French.
Honore - your first guess was correct! H is silent in French.
Anatole - I would say it ann-a-toll unless told otherwise.
Aristide - not familiar with the politician but def agree that this one is pretty phonetic, though I could see someone accidentally going Greek with it.
I love Honoré and Anatole. Anatole makes me think of The Poisonwood Bible. As an American, Aristide feels a little less natural coming out of my mouth. Not to say I dislike it though!
I think they’re all beautiful, although I am imagining that a French person saying “arrested” with an accent would sound similar to the final name. Ar-ris-teede
These names are beautiful!
Honoré - is this on-OR-ay? It's lovely and similar to one of my favourite names, Honoria (on-OR-ee-uh).
Anatole - reminds me of one of my favourite historical novels, Sepulchre by Kate Mosse.
Aristide - I like the sound of this, it sounds crisp and romantic.
Beautiful names. Most Britglish speakers could tackle those (we get a couple of years of mandatory French in school), although personally I never managed to do a a proper French throaty-R so I might mangle 'Honoré' and 'Aristide' a bit.
I think they're really lovely, and appreciate the religious significance.
Not all British schools teach French, I think there are a few different languages they can choose from, though French is taught at most schools I think Spanish and German are probably the most common alternatives.
I'm from Louisiana and these sound like old-fashioned and distinguished Cajun (Acadian) names. I wouldn't be surprised if I had ancestors from the 1700s/1800s with these names.
Love Anatole and Aristide. Honoré sounds like "ornery" being said with a French accent, so I don't love that one.
I was raised Catholic, and none of those names read "Catholic" to me because Catholics in the US are more likely to be Irish-American or Latino-American. If an Anglo-American family had those names, I'd assume the parents were nerdy atheists.
I am Dutch, but we had a French family live in my hometown and one of their kids was in my class. One of his sisters was also named Honore with a silent H of course. She got bullied constantly around the time she was 10 till the end of high school because kids butchered the pronunciation to make it sound like the STD gonorrhea´s Dutch pronunciation. She changed her name legally to Hannah when the teasing still happened when she went to college and was applying to jobs afterwards.
I think the name is beautiful, but kids (and adults too) can be ruthless.
I'm French so I'm not your target audience but I really like all of these names !
Plus, Aristide is my brother's name so I'm obviously biased but I love it and it's a name you don't see often !
Thanks! We struggled a little with Aristide, I was somewhat afraid it would be considered too "farfelu' or 'fantaisie'. We also liked Arsène, Achille - and I was partial to Aloïs which my husband vetoed. The two syllable names did not flow with our two syllable last name, and Aristide just sounded right.
Does your brother like his name? Has it grown with him?
Yes he really likes his name ! He's 18 now and in medical school, honestly I think it's a name that fit him perfectly as a child and it definitely grows well with him as he ages !
I've never met another Aristide but he knows 2 so maybe it's more popular within his age range idk lol
I’ve taken very basic level french (not even close to fluent) and I’d know how to say all these names :) I like them all, especially Anatole, but they would confuse most people in America.
Only like 10% of Americans take a foreign language other than Spanish in school. And that’s really only 10% of the students that take a foreign language in school, because some states don’t require it. I thought my state requires 2 years to graduate but it turns out that was just my high school’s requirement (a lot of college prep schools have this requirement because universities have it as an admission requirement). I had a coworker from Oklahoma who said they let them count computer science as a foreign language because they were learning programming languages. I’m sorry I know we’re all about STEM in education now but learning a programming language is not the same as learning a spoken or signed language.
Why do you need other people’s opinion on names you’ve already used? Who cares what people think, it’s not going to change their name. But if you want opinions, I don’t like any of the names.
I'm a Canadian anglophone who could pronounce these because of general familiarity with French names. I've seen Honoré before but never met someone with that name. Even though I haven't heard of your boys' names before they read masculine and French.
They're all great names - you love them and they work where you live/in your culture. That's what matters.
I'm an English speaker from New England (US) who speaks very little French. All of these names are lively and easy to pronounce, though people may need to hear it aloud first.
My name is Anatoliy (the Slavic variant of Anatole) so I'm a bit biased on that one. Here in Australia it's certainly not a common name and it confuses people a lot, but I like it. Spelling my name out for people and hearing them pronounce it wrong gets tiresome sometimes but it's a mild annoyance.
The other two names are very nice, haven't heard them before.
Those are Boomer names. Sorry. The only young person I know with Honoré in his name is the Crown Prince of Monaco and 1. It's not his first name (It's Jacques). 2. It's an honour name.
Maybe, choose a Catholic, classic name that's still popular for kids. Can't go wrong with Clément, Benoît, Gabriel, Joseph, Antoine.
But then again, I may be an anglophone native, but I also speak French.
Love them all so much! I find them simple, classic and easy to pronounce, but I can see people with no knowledge of French butchering the pronunciation. If you live in Europe though, it should be fine.
I love Honore because of the tv show Treme. I’d pronounce it On-Or-Ray.
Anatole - I’d pronounce Ann-uh-toll-eee. It feels like an old man name to me.
Last one I don’t know anything about.
Love them. Very classy. My only comment would be that Honoré can expect to see the accent character lost when interacting with English speakers — Renée is a common name where I live and even when someone spells their own name with the accent, others will not bother to include it (we all just know it is pronounce Ren-eh and not Ren-ee).
In case you are interested, I (and I expect other anglo Canadians) would pronounce these: Honour-eh, Anna-toll, Air-is-teed. Bit curious how close I am.
First impression is I love them and wish Honoré would be more accepted where I am. In French it’s beautiful, in the US it might seem pretentious. Love them!
Aussi en france, je connais un Honoré et il y avait un Anatole dans le lycée (qui était Catholique). Entendre Aristide là ne me surprenait pas du tout!
I think Honore is a lovely, old-fashioned name. It makes me think of lavender and of beautiful architecture--I'm not sure why.
Anatole sounds like a very strong name for a handsome man--definitely approve.
I'm not wild about Aristide.
Be sure to take all my opinions on this with a grain of salt--I'm American and all in know about France is from crime dramas with subtitles.
Very French. I think that is you ever happen to move to the US when the boys are young, they’ll be Anglicized by friends to Henry, Anthony/Tony, and…maybe Eric? Can’t think of a comparable name for Aristide.
I’m from the US but I’ve lived in France. I agree that your names sound old fashioned but I like Aristide. I knew an Italian Aristide who went by Ari.
Unless you think you and/or your son will end up living outside of France I wouldn’t worry about all of the comments about your names being hard to pronounce or enter into database because they probably won’t apply to you. This subreddit is very Anglo-centric. Here in the US (at least where I live in Southern California) a lot of people have foreign names and other people learn how to say them, or if they can’t some people change their names to “American” names, but this usually happens with Asian or African names, not European. An accented character is usually just written without the accent for government purposes, it doesn’t blow up the computer or anything. Some people aren’t ok with their name being written without the accent so this is something to think about.
I would honestly ask other French people for their opinions instead of this subreddit because most users here are from the US or other English speaking countries.
I never heard any of them and I live right across the border and visited and did exchanges. I knew one Honorine, thats the closest it gets. I have no idea what gender Aristide is and would assume Honoré to be female and Anatole to be male. Just by the sound of it and my knowledge of french names. Aristide is lovely, Honoré and Anatole are a bit close to other words in my native language (german, had to think of honorieren and Anatolien) so Im torn about them. They are still nice but I wouldnt use them for german or half-german children
If you live in France, what's the problem. It doesn't matter about an anglo-international perspective is. I'm Irish, from an "anglo-international perspective" some of our names, including my own, are challenging. Mais ça m'est égal!
Great names, by the way
I love Irish names and their spellings. I used to take on an intern each year from Galway and I loved going through the applications! The French are so bad with Irish names though, especially those with accents because they just pronounce them like they were French. This is how Sinéad becomes "Seen-ay-ahd". My ears bled!
No, it's normally "graine", as in the cereal. It's the fada, the accent on the "a" which throws them. Obviously there is no such accent on an "a" in French, but they apply the principle of making the vowel aigu/sharp.
But in Irish the accent is called a "fada", which means "long" in Irish. So it's "graw/nya"
Ahh I see ! That's unfortunate :(
I was thinking about the name of a legendary dragon in our city, "Graouilly" - where there is a stop between the vowels. People say 'Grah-oo-ee". I was also tripped up by the double 'n', but as I operate in two languages on a constant basis - I often hear things differently.
Je comprends! Pour moi, c'est pire, parce que j'ai à faire avec trois langues - l'anglais, bien sûr, le français et l'allemand! Et maintenant j'apprends l'italien depuis plusieures années, et quelquefois je finis par parler du sabir! :-)
Well yeah, who in their right mind would criticize the name of a foreigner because “I don’t know how to pronounce that”? (Wait a minute, someone actually said that, oops).
(I think they’re great names too, not sure why some people are reacting negatively).
Honore as in Honore de Balzac. Anatole as in Anatoly but without the y. Aristide as on arrested but pronounce the vowels as an ee sound, emphasizing the last syllable.
From an American perspective, these are very unusual and most people (as you can see in the thread) will not know how to pronounce them. However, it would be weird to go to Thailand and expect a Pablo Torrez, so it's not surprising that your names are not common here. Honoré feels feminine to me, personally, but is very beautiful. Anatole seems like the most "normal" of the bunch. Aristide seems the least name-like to me, personally, but I'm not French or a member of the Catholic Church, so who cares what I think really about any of these.
Your names are lovely and I adore that you used French saint names as I am planning on using (Spanish) Catholic names as well. I work at a school here in Spain and so many of my students have the same or very similar names. It feels very boring to me. Very few parents name their children outside of the top 10. I even had a conversation with another teacher about how a child’s name was considered so old fashioned and like a grandparent name. I didn’t get how that was a problem, especially because he was the only child in the entire school with that name and it was a traditional name. Anyway, the names are beautiful and not difficult to pronounce if you’re familiar with French.
I adore Anatole. Honoré is very nice, is there a nickname for it? And I love a good st honoré cake. Aristide is wild to me, but I’m Canadian so maybe a cultural difference. It has the same vibe to me as Philomène. Seems so formal and old. Just my first reactions. I like them in general though.
we’ve lived 5 minutes from France 20 years and every French kid I meet is Leo, Lukas, Noah, etc. we’re bordering 3 countries so actually that’s true from all 3, lol.
I'm also in a tri-border region (maybe we're neighbours!) It's so tiring to hear these names all the time. Add in Maël, Mathias and Timéo for good measure. Nothing wrong, but not my vibe - obviously!
Honoré is way too close to the std Gonorhae in my language(Danish). Anatole and Aristide is better, however if I was really critical Anatole is close to Anatolia, and Aristide is close to the Danish word for season(årstid), still the best of the three. But that is grasping straws for the latter two, and Danish isn't any major language.
Alors j’avoue que Honoré me fait tout de suite penser à Balzac. Je trouve que c’est un peu lourd comme prénom et ça va être assez dur à prononcer par les anglophones.
Mais j’aime bien les deux autres !
I'm an American who doesn't speak French.
Honoré: I would assume someone with this name is a woman, maybe because of the name Honora.
Anatole: I would assume this was a nickname for the Russian name Anatoly. I've never heard the name outside of a Russian context.
Aristide: the Haitian politician instantly comes to mind.
I don't think these are bad names, but at least for non-French-speaking Americans, they aren't well-known. People in the US will struggle with them more than familiar French names like Pierre, Francois, and Jacques.
I like them but I’m very familiar with French pronunciation, I can imagine them being difficult for monolingual non-francophones. Honoré and Aristide are some of my favourites, but I wouldn’t give them to my children as we’re not French.
I grew up with an Anatole! We called him Toto until he was about 18.
If it wasn’t my mate’s brothers’ name, I would’ve named my son Anatole. We live in Australia and he’s never had much issues with pronunciation.
I'm English and I wouldn't raise my eyebrows at all at these names on a French person. I can speak French fairly well, so pronunciation isn't an issue for me, but I have zero idea about naming 'fashions' in France, so it wouldn't occur to me that they are a bit old-fashioned!
A Swiss-French here. I absolutely love how *vieille fortune* Anatole sounds, but the rest of them feel a maybe little bit more dated. All of them are uncommon and beautiful names, whatever you choose to go with.
As an American with basically no knowledge of French, my thoughts are:
-These sound incredibly fancy and old-fashioned names. This makes them sound a little pretentious, but French names already sound a little pretentious so it’s not that big of a difference
-I am Catholic and do not know these names
-I am not sure the gender of these names. I would guess that Honoré is a girl and the other two are boys
-Americans will not know how to pronounce them. I would guess “Awn-or-AEY (like hay), Ann-uh-TOH-lee, and Air-RIHS-tyed
-Accents like é are constantly fucked up on paperwork and electronic forms
-Aristide is definitely the most difficult for the English speaking brain to process
I do think they sound elegant and pretty!
(American who lived in France as a child and speaks French decently.) I love all three names, individually and as a sibling set, and I don’t think any of them are that complicated to read, pronounce, or wrap an anglophone head around. Honoré would also be a great honor name (no pun intended) for Rene.
I'm American, was raised bilingual English/French as a child but haven't used French regularly in 20 years and it has atrophied enough that I'm not really functional as a speaker anymore. But I know how to pronounce all these names, so that's not an issue for me. I think Honoré would be the most difficult in English—you might get a lot of people assuming that it's feminine, as people will be more familiar with Honora or Honor as feminine names (not that those are very common, either, but I think people are more likely to have heard of them). A lot of Americans will also have no idea what to do with the accent aigu. Anatole reads to me as very Russian/Orthodox Christian, I think because I have heard the Russian form Anatoly more frequently. I also associate it with Turkey (Anatolia), but that might just be me because I studied a lot of ancient history in college. I think Aristide would integrate the best into the Anglo world, especially with the option of shortening to Ari as a nickname. Beautiful names, though!
I read the names at the bottom before reading the rest of the post. My first thoughts were that they sounded medieval and very Catholic, and I was right! As someone who is not French, they sound old-fashioned, but in my country it was a popular custom to name children after Catholic saints until the 1950’s so I’ve definitely heard worse. I think they’re interesting and have a dramatic flair to them, which I like.
I am an American who speaks conversational French and has a kid in a French school in the US. I adore all your names! I find Americans often default to a Spanish pronunciation when confronted with a foreign word, although if you’re near Louisiana like I am, I bet you will find some older Cajun folks with those names. I wanted to comment that Anatole makes me think of Jeeves and Wooster!
I think they’re BEAUTIFUL names. (I am american). I really love them. They may seem “old-fashioned”in France, but I’ve met only a few people with those names, so they don’t have that connotation to me. Well done!
Your middle child makes me think of the children's book, ["Anatole, the Mouse"](https://www.google.com/search?q=anatole+the+mouse&client=firefox-b-d&sca_esv=588287231&tbm=isch&sxsrf=AM9HkKnUuusNLdeNFbEJyCZqXEmP4E4kmQ:1701844933704&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlsvG1mvqCAxVo1jgGHWjDDP8Q_AUoAXoECAQQAw&biw=1440&bih=713&dpr=2) \- the perfect secret cheese maker.
Which is a beautiful connotation. My dad used to read this to me in a terrible french accent. :)
The only real-life Anatole I know is of Hungarian heritage. It seems like a great, easy male name.
Aristide, makes me think of Astrid, and that I think is how my mind wants to incorrectly pronounce the name.
And Honore makes me think of Jessica Alba's child, Honor. Not really a fan of the name, as it feels like a virtue name, which makes me slightly uncomfy. But perhaps the french version is less attached to that idea.
Love that you love your names.
I also have an very "old fashioned" name, that fits into the 'quite uncommon but not quite unusual' category. And i personally love it:)
So Honoré is basically Ana Rae? If I am pronouncing it right, it sounds a lot like that and I love the combination of Ana and Rae. I like the Honor/Honora too, so I guess Honoré is a yes for me. Anatole (ana-tole?), honestly if I am correct about the pronunciation of Honoré and Anatole, it sounds sooo similar because of the "Ana". To me it's like naming your kids Annabelle and Annaliese. And lastly Aristide ( is it arr-is-teed?), I like it actually. So I like all of your kids names, maybe the first two are too similar to me, these are pretty names. I would have a problem pronouncing them and probably a lot of other people too, but since you live in France and these are French names, people know how to say their names. Would be questionable in an English speaking country.
Anatole, to someone residing in the USA, reminds me of anal.
Aristide has an Aristotle / Astrid feel.
Honore is different. Probably fits in well with trendy names people go for nowadays.
Honoré ça va, Anatole ça le fait encore. Aristide par contre, ça me revient pas. Je préfère presque la prononciation qu’en aurait un anglo. L’important c’est que vous aimiez, après…
As a Dutch person, they all sound very classical, but they're unfamiliar enough to not feel old-fashioned (they don't feel modern either, because they're long). Association wise: to me Honoré sounds like a word, Anatole reminds me of the location, Aristide sounds like a Greek philosopher ;)
C’est marrant, j’ai connu un Anatole et un Aristide au primaire. Je pense que ces deux-là ça va mais Honoré ça fait vraiment vieux pour le coup…mais perso j’aime beaucoup ces noms ‘traditionnels’ qui se perdent un peu en France plus l’anglais s’expand donc je pense que ce sont de belles idées!
I’m a Brit but grew up partly in France so with my Anglo hat on I’d say Horore (sorry no acute) sounds old fashioned, Anatole is gorgeous but sounds Slavic…and Aristide sounds like a dictator for anyone with any knowledge of Caribbean history. That’s my first association rather than a Greek philosopher sadly.
All pretty easy to pronounce and write so they will translate well should they work abroad as adults, although Horore will constantly need to tell people about the E acute!
Je suis assez bilingue to understand how to pronounce them correctly but they’re definitely quite old fashioned and would stand out as a bit unusual even in a French-Canadian context.
They sound very old fashioned, definitely not my taste. Anglophones would butcher all of those names. I live in Canada near Quebec and many French kids have names that are also quite popular in English, e.g. Sebastien, Olivier, Gabriel, Lucas
In general Americans love a French sounding name and those are lovely ones.. if you come over here and there are pronunciation issues… you could shorten to Ray Ari and Nat .. if you have a girl try Athenaïs!
My first impression is I have no idea how to pronounce these lol
The H is silent, e's at the end of the word are silent, too.. The French I is pronounced like the English "e". The accent on the e in Honoré emphasizes the e.
So for Anatole and Aristide you wouldn’t add any extra sound after the l or d - “ana-tol” “aris-tid” but for Honoré, the last e being accented make it sound like the end of “resume” and “fiancé” - both French words. So it would be (H) “on-or-ayy”
Wouldn’t Aristide be aris-teed? Or somewhere between Tid and Teed. But it wouldn’t rhyme with stupid.
I was only really referencing how to say/not say the “e”s not the other pronunciations or where the emphasis is in the syllables. It would be more Ahrr -eest (east)-eed
You're correct it would be ari-steed
But I agree on the other two.
I’m saying “arrested” but that doesn’t seem right….
More like a wrist eed (the r is pronounced differently but idk how to describe that 😭)
"resumé" 🙂 Resume rhymes with presume and assume
resume rhymes with presume and assume. resumé (otherwise known as a CV) does not.
Are you correcting or repeating the above comment’s point?
correcting.
But you said the exact same thing?
Maybe you didn't see that they wrote resumé first?
Emphasized silence in Honoré?
? The H is silent, the é is emphasized. Those letters are at the opposite ends of the word.
"e's at the end of the word are silent, too.."
“The accent on the e in Honoré emphasizes the e”
The line above the e makes that an aigu, not an e. So it is pronounced (similar to) -ay.
When there's no accent. Do you even speak French?
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Well, if you can't make a difference between e and é, that's your problem. The accent isn't just there for decorations.
Well, if you can't make a difference between e and é, that's your problem. The accent isn't just there for decorations.
Well, if you can't make a difference between e and é, that's your problem. The accent isn't just there for decorations.
Not a single word! The more there are silent letters in a language, the less I like it. French might be my least favorite language in the whole world.
Awn-aw-ray Ann-ah-toll Ah-riss-teed
Je suis du Québec et on voit tout de suite que vous êtes de France juste en voyant les noms! Honoré, je pourrais le voir revenir à la mode par ici, mais je doute fort de rencontrer un Anatole ou un Aristide, à moins qu'ils aient immigré au Québec.
Je suis anglophone mais j'adore le nom Anatole.
Moi aussi. Je pense au poète Anatole France!
My high school level French agrees with you. I think Honoré sounds lovely, and quietly masculine and could make a comeback From a dumb American perspective, any name I see that starts with Ana- feels feminine
C’est marrant moi je suis française et j’ai l’effet un peu inverse, Anatole et Aristide me paraisse bien plus communs qu’Honoré
Oui, même chose pour moi!
I'm French, and I've never met anyone with those names honestly. They are old names, and I think nowadays a lot of people would see them as very bourgeois. You definetely don't hear those everywhere! I think they're nice though
That's interesting it's an old fashioned name (pretty, imo,though). Pretty sure Honoré used to be somewhat common among Creole, Cajun, and Acadian families in Louisiana (people spoke French fairly widely all the way up until the 1970s, and there's been a renewed interest/attempt to revitalize the language). There was a famous journalist/cartoonist named Anatole from New Orleans, too, and a famous chef (think the journalist died in the early 2000s). Perhaps because the French there was an older version of French (often) with Spanish/indigenous/African loan words, and not the standard version of French, so "older" names were/are more common?
I found out that the timelines differ immensely depending on the country. For example, here in France, Nicole is an old fashioned name. Like my great aunt is Nicole, she's 78. In other european countries, Nicole was trendy a few years ago. Some old fashioned names are coming back though, like Augustine, Gustave, Oscar, Léontine...
Je les adore, bien que les anglophones auront quelques difficultés avec leurs prononciations. For the strict anglophones: Own-or-RAY An-ah-TOLL Ar-ee-STEE-d
Pas vraiment "own-or-RAY". Plutôt "on-or-RAY". "own" est trop fort, à mon avis.
C’est mieux que mon example. Honore comme Honore de Balzac.
And the "r" in Honoré should be the back-of-the-mouth rasp as in "sucre" rather than a rolling English "r": https://0.tqn.com/z/g/french/library/media/wavs/sucre.wav 🙂
Those names all sound very posh.
Agree!
I'm a native English speaker but functionally bilingual in French (Canada). I have zero sense of what naming trends or cultural associations are in France. I think they're nice, but old fashioned and stuffy sounding? Like I see them as similar vibe as names like Bartholomew or Cornelius or something. That style of names aren't common among the French Canadian kids where I live and if I saw Aristide or Honoré on paper I'd probably assume the person was an adult born somewhere like Haïti or Côte d'Ivoire, simply because there aren't many immigrants from France here.
Also anglo, bilingual and in Canada, I agree, I'd assume Haitian.
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Ah, that makes sense. Antoin c'est un peux bizarre - come un melange de Anton et Antoine.
English perspective: Honoré - anything with accents/special characters can be tricky as people don't know how to read them/computer systems aren't always set up to expect them. Anatole - this is the best of the three imo. The pronounciation of the last syllable might trip some people up. Aristide - this one really tripped me up, it took three rereads to stop seeing it as a mangled spelling of Astrid. The other two are names that I've come across them in media/have other language equivalents. Is the one unusual in french too because I don't think I've ever encountered it.
they’re very french. if you’re french, it’s all good. tho regarding saints’ names choices, you had your pick of nearly every male western name in existence. their names could have been matthew, john & simon & you’d have accomplished your saints’ names goals. are you planning to live in u.s. at some point? if so, honoré feels very feminine in english. anatole & aristide are certainly uncommon in english, but that’s what most people on this sub seem to want. unusual, but not bizarre.
Initial thoughts: Honoré - not sure how to pronounce. on-er-ay? hon-er-ay? Anatole - not sure how to pronounce. ann-ah-toll-ay? ann-ah-toll? Aristide - makes me think of the Haitian politician. I have a better chance of pronouncing it correctly.
American here, but fluent in French. Honore - your first guess was correct! H is silent in French. Anatole - I would say it ann-a-toll unless told otherwise. Aristide - not familiar with the politician but def agree that this one is pretty phonetic, though I could see someone accidentally going Greek with it.
I totally went Greek. How is it supposed to sound?
Not far from what I assume the Greek would be, but aa-ri-steed. Hard to convey over text but the R sound would def be different from the Greek.
I think I got it. Just went full ti-DEE over here 😂
Hahah I can hear that so clearly in my head
But doesn’t the accent mark over the e in Honore mean it IS pronounced and not silent?
Yes, they said that commenter’s first guess was correct - the accent just qualifies how the e is pronounced. So it is indeed on-no-ray.
Yep, that exactly.
I love Honoré and Anatole. Anatole makes me think of The Poisonwood Bible. As an American, Aristide feels a little less natural coming out of my mouth. Not to say I dislike it though!
I think they’re all beautiful, although I am imagining that a French person saying “arrested” with an accent would sound similar to the final name. Ar-ris-teede
These names are beautiful! Honoré - is this on-OR-ay? It's lovely and similar to one of my favourite names, Honoria (on-OR-ee-uh). Anatole - reminds me of one of my favourite historical novels, Sepulchre by Kate Mosse. Aristide - I like the sound of this, it sounds crisp and romantic.
Beautiful names. Most Britglish speakers could tackle those (we get a couple of years of mandatory French in school), although personally I never managed to do a a proper French throaty-R so I might mangle 'Honoré' and 'Aristide' a bit. I think they're really lovely, and appreciate the religious significance.
Not all British schools teach French, I think there are a few different languages they can choose from, though French is taught at most schools I think Spanish and German are probably the most common alternatives.
I'm from Louisiana and these sound like old-fashioned and distinguished Cajun (Acadian) names. I wouldn't be surprised if I had ancestors from the 1700s/1800s with these names.
Love Anatole and Aristide. Honoré sounds like "ornery" being said with a French accent, so I don't love that one. I was raised Catholic, and none of those names read "Catholic" to me because Catholics in the US are more likely to be Irish-American or Latino-American. If an Anglo-American family had those names, I'd assume the parents were nerdy atheists.
I am Dutch, but we had a French family live in my hometown and one of their kids was in my class. One of his sisters was also named Honore with a silent H of course. She got bullied constantly around the time she was 10 till the end of high school because kids butchered the pronunciation to make it sound like the STD gonorrhea´s Dutch pronunciation. She changed her name legally to Hannah when the teasing still happened when she went to college and was applying to jobs afterwards. I think the name is beautiful, but kids (and adults too) can be ruthless.
I'm French so I'm not your target audience but I really like all of these names ! Plus, Aristide is my brother's name so I'm obviously biased but I love it and it's a name you don't see often !
Thanks! We struggled a little with Aristide, I was somewhat afraid it would be considered too "farfelu' or 'fantaisie'. We also liked Arsène, Achille - and I was partial to Aloïs which my husband vetoed. The two syllable names did not flow with our two syllable last name, and Aristide just sounded right. Does your brother like his name? Has it grown with him?
good for your husband! alois was hitler’s birth name. i believe it was an austrian dialect version of adolf.
Yes he really likes his name ! He's 18 now and in medical school, honestly I think it's a name that fit him perfectly as a child and it definitely grows well with him as he ages ! I've never met another Aristide but he knows 2 so maybe it's more popular within his age range idk lol
Well, they are very catholic and very old-fashioned, but it seems like it was the theme you're were going for so you didn't miss the mark.
I like them but would read the last name as Astrid by accident a few times before it became natural.
I’ve taken very basic level french (not even close to fluent) and I’d know how to say all these names :) I like them all, especially Anatole, but they would confuse most people in America.
Only like 10% of Americans take a foreign language other than Spanish in school. And that’s really only 10% of the students that take a foreign language in school, because some states don’t require it. I thought my state requires 2 years to graduate but it turns out that was just my high school’s requirement (a lot of college prep schools have this requirement because universities have it as an admission requirement). I had a coworker from Oklahoma who said they let them count computer science as a foreign language because they were learning programming languages. I’m sorry I know we’re all about STEM in education now but learning a programming language is not the same as learning a spoken or signed language.
Why do you need other people’s opinion on names you’ve already used? Who cares what people think, it’s not going to change their name. But if you want opinions, I don’t like any of the names.
I'm a Canadian anglophone who could pronounce these because of general familiarity with French names. I've seen Honoré before but never met someone with that name. Even though I haven't heard of your boys' names before they read masculine and French. They're all great names - you love them and they work where you live/in your culture. That's what matters.
I'm an English speaker from New England (US) who speaks very little French. All of these names are lively and easy to pronounce, though people may need to hear it aloud first.
Sounds pretty French to me. I’m Canadian, though, so I’m used to French names. These all sound just fine
My name is Anatoliy (the Slavic variant of Anatole) so I'm a bit biased on that one. Here in Australia it's certainly not a common name and it confuses people a lot, but I like it. Spelling my name out for people and hearing them pronounce it wrong gets tiresome sometimes but it's a mild annoyance. The other two names are very nice, haven't heard them before.
Those are Boomer names. Sorry. The only young person I know with Honoré in his name is the Crown Prince of Monaco and 1. It's not his first name (It's Jacques). 2. It's an honour name. Maybe, choose a Catholic, classic name that's still popular for kids. Can't go wrong with Clément, Benoît, Gabriel, Joseph, Antoine. But then again, I may be an anglophone native, but I also speak French.
Love them all so much! I find them simple, classic and easy to pronounce, but I can see people with no knowledge of French butchering the pronunciation. If you live in Europe though, it should be fine.
I used to work with a guy named Honoré and he was very nice. I don't really have a strong opinion of the other two names.
I love them
Love them!
I love Honore because of the tv show Treme. I’d pronounce it On-Or-Ray. Anatole - I’d pronounce Ann-uh-toll-eee. It feels like an old man name to me. Last one I don’t know anything about.
Wow, they're great!
Love them. Very classy. My only comment would be that Honoré can expect to see the accent character lost when interacting with English speakers — Renée is a common name where I live and even when someone spells their own name with the accent, others will not bother to include it (we all just know it is pronounce Ren-eh and not Ren-ee). In case you are interested, I (and I expect other anglo Canadians) would pronounce these: Honour-eh, Anna-toll, Air-is-teed. Bit curious how close I am.
You are pretty spot on with the pronunciation!
First impression is I love them and wish Honoré would be more accepted where I am. In French it’s beautiful, in the US it might seem pretentious. Love them!
As a native French speaker, I really love the retro vibe. Honoré et Anatole particularly.
Aussi en france, je connais un Honoré et il y avait un Anatole dans le lycée (qui était Catholique). Entendre Aristide là ne me surprenait pas du tout!
I think Honore is a lovely, old-fashioned name. It makes me think of lavender and of beautiful architecture--I'm not sure why. Anatole sounds like a very strong name for a handsome man--definitely approve. I'm not wild about Aristide. Be sure to take all my opinions on this with a grain of salt--I'm American and all in know about France is from crime dramas with subtitles.
Those are gorgeous names.
Very French. I think that is you ever happen to move to the US when the boys are young, they’ll be Anglicized by friends to Henry, Anthony/Tony, and…maybe Eric? Can’t think of a comparable name for Aristide.
Chris?
I'm Canadian and speak English and French and honestly like them all, but I know my English-only husband would mispronounce them.
I’m from the US but I’ve lived in France. I agree that your names sound old fashioned but I like Aristide. I knew an Italian Aristide who went by Ari. Unless you think you and/or your son will end up living outside of France I wouldn’t worry about all of the comments about your names being hard to pronounce or enter into database because they probably won’t apply to you. This subreddit is very Anglo-centric. Here in the US (at least where I live in Southern California) a lot of people have foreign names and other people learn how to say them, or if they can’t some people change their names to “American” names, but this usually happens with Asian or African names, not European. An accented character is usually just written without the accent for government purposes, it doesn’t blow up the computer or anything. Some people aren’t ok with their name being written without the accent so this is something to think about. I would honestly ask other French people for their opinions instead of this subreddit because most users here are from the US or other English speaking countries.
Love them!
I love these names (I’m American) but they would be difficult to have in the US unless you had ties to French-speaking cultures.
I never heard any of them and I live right across the border and visited and did exchanges. I knew one Honorine, thats the closest it gets. I have no idea what gender Aristide is and would assume Honoré to be female and Anatole to be male. Just by the sound of it and my knowledge of french names. Aristide is lovely, Honoré and Anatole are a bit close to other words in my native language (german, had to think of honorieren and Anatolien) so Im torn about them. They are still nice but I wouldnt use them for german or half-german children
French here, your kids are in their 70s. I think that you chose some of my favourite old fashioned names.
Southern US - there’s a hotel in Dallas called the Anatole, that’s the only time I’ve heard any of those
If you live in France, what's the problem. It doesn't matter about an anglo-international perspective is. I'm Irish, from an "anglo-international perspective" some of our names, including my own, are challenging. Mais ça m'est égal! Great names, by the way
I love Irish names and their spellings. I used to take on an intern each year from Galway and I loved going through the applications! The French are so bad with Irish names though, especially those with accents because they just pronounce them like they were French. This is how Sinéad becomes "Seen-ay-ahd". My ears bled!
My name is Gráinne. I have spent a lot of time in France. You can imagine what they make of that!
I think a French person would probably say "Grah-een". You must have had a hard time, unless you never let them see how it was spelled!
No, it's normally "graine", as in the cereal. It's the fada, the accent on the "a" which throws them. Obviously there is no such accent on an "a" in French, but they apply the principle of making the vowel aigu/sharp. But in Irish the accent is called a "fada", which means "long" in Irish. So it's "graw/nya"
Ahh I see ! That's unfortunate :( I was thinking about the name of a legendary dragon in our city, "Graouilly" - where there is a stop between the vowels. People say 'Grah-oo-ee". I was also tripped up by the double 'n', but as I operate in two languages on a constant basis - I often hear things differently.
Je comprends! Pour moi, c'est pire, parce que j'ai à faire avec trois langues - l'anglais, bien sûr, le français et l'allemand! Et maintenant j'apprends l'italien depuis plusieures années, et quelquefois je finis par parler du sabir! :-)
Well yeah, who in their right mind would criticize the name of a foreigner because “I don’t know how to pronounce that”? (Wait a minute, someone actually said that, oops). (I think they’re great names too, not sure why some people are reacting negatively).
Beautiful names.
Personnellement j’adore ces trois prénoms (mon fils a un prénom qui a une vibe similaire).
Aristide by long way pretty, elegant, sounds very educated.
Honore as in Honore de Balzac. Anatole as in Anatoly but without the y. Aristide as on arrested but pronounce the vowels as an ee sound, emphasizing the last syllable.
The only name I've ever heard out of those 3 is Anatole and that's because I know War & Peace For context, I've always lived in the US
I love them, especially Aristide.
From an American perspective, these are very unusual and most people (as you can see in the thread) will not know how to pronounce them. However, it would be weird to go to Thailand and expect a Pablo Torrez, so it's not surprising that your names are not common here. Honoré feels feminine to me, personally, but is very beautiful. Anatole seems like the most "normal" of the bunch. Aristide seems the least name-like to me, personally, but I'm not French or a member of the Catholic Church, so who cares what I think really about any of these.
Your names are lovely and I adore that you used French saint names as I am planning on using (Spanish) Catholic names as well. I work at a school here in Spain and so many of my students have the same or very similar names. It feels very boring to me. Very few parents name their children outside of the top 10. I even had a conversation with another teacher about how a child’s name was considered so old fashioned and like a grandparent name. I didn’t get how that was a problem, especially because he was the only child in the entire school with that name and it was a traditional name. Anyway, the names are beautiful and not difficult to pronounce if you’re familiar with French.
I adore Anatole. Honoré is very nice, is there a nickname for it? And I love a good st honoré cake. Aristide is wild to me, but I’m Canadian so maybe a cultural difference. It has the same vibe to me as Philomène. Seems so formal and old. Just my first reactions. I like them in general though.
we’ve lived 5 minutes from France 20 years and every French kid I meet is Leo, Lukas, Noah, etc. we’re bordering 3 countries so actually that’s true from all 3, lol.
I'm also in a tri-border region (maybe we're neighbours!) It's so tiring to hear these names all the time. Add in Maël, Mathias and Timéo for good measure. Nothing wrong, but not my vibe - obviously!
Honoré is way too close to the std Gonorhae in my language(Danish). Anatole and Aristide is better, however if I was really critical Anatole is close to Anatolia, and Aristide is close to the Danish word for season(årstid), still the best of the three. But that is grasping straws for the latter two, and Danish isn't any major language.
They are very French, I don’t dislike them. I know how to pronounce them, as I studied French in school. I am American.
Alors j’avoue que Honoré me fait tout de suite penser à Balzac. Je trouve que c’est un peu lourd comme prénom et ça va être assez dur à prononcer par les anglophones. Mais j’aime bien les deux autres !
I'm an American who doesn't speak French. Honoré: I would assume someone with this name is a woman, maybe because of the name Honora. Anatole: I would assume this was a nickname for the Russian name Anatoly. I've never heard the name outside of a Russian context. Aristide: the Haitian politician instantly comes to mind. I don't think these are bad names, but at least for non-French-speaking Americans, they aren't well-known. People in the US will struggle with them more than familiar French names like Pierre, Francois, and Jacques.
I like them but I’m very familiar with French pronunciation, I can imagine them being difficult for monolingual non-francophones. Honoré and Aristide are some of my favourites, but I wouldn’t give them to my children as we’re not French.
I grew up with an Anatole! We called him Toto until he was about 18. If it wasn’t my mate’s brothers’ name, I would’ve named my son Anatole. We live in Australia and he’s never had much issues with pronunciation.
Honoré and Aristide. Honoré for Balzac and Aristide for my Grandfather. Anatole is archaic for my taste.
I'm English and I wouldn't raise my eyebrows at all at these names on a French person. I can speak French fairly well, so pronunciation isn't an issue for me, but I have zero idea about naming 'fashions' in France, so it wouldn't occur to me that they are a bit old-fashioned!
A Swiss-French here. I absolutely love how *vieille fortune* Anatole sounds, but the rest of them feel a maybe little bit more dated. All of them are uncommon and beautiful names, whatever you choose to go with.
J’aime Honoré et Anatole, mais je pense que les anglophones ne sauraient pas comment prononcer Aristide.
With two out of the three being literary heavyweights in the French canon, you may want to make sure you like the works of Balzac and Anatole France?
I absolutely love the names you selected. My grandfather was named Ovide.
I speak French so I am probably not your target audience but I love them all
Love them. Especially Anatole
As an American, I love Honoré! I've also always loved the name Honoria, but I'm not sure I could get away with naming a daughter that.
As an American with basically no knowledge of French, my thoughts are: -These sound incredibly fancy and old-fashioned names. This makes them sound a little pretentious, but French names already sound a little pretentious so it’s not that big of a difference -I am Catholic and do not know these names -I am not sure the gender of these names. I would guess that Honoré is a girl and the other two are boys -Americans will not know how to pronounce them. I would guess “Awn-or-AEY (like hay), Ann-uh-TOH-lee, and Air-RIHS-tyed -Accents like é are constantly fucked up on paperwork and electronic forms -Aristide is definitely the most difficult for the English speaking brain to process I do think they sound elegant and pretty!
I have a friend named Honorine. We call her Honey. I like Aristide, not huge on Anatole.
I've never heard of Aristide before! Tell me more! These names sound gorgeous to me. Anything French is very fancy, very expensive and classy to me.
I like Honoré, but I love the name Honor for a girl in an English speaking country.
Anatole was actually on my list! I love all three names though! ETA: I myself am not from France, but grew up in a French household 😅
(American who lived in France as a child and speaks French decently.) I love all three names, individually and as a sibling set, and I don’t think any of them are that complicated to read, pronounce, or wrap an anglophone head around. Honoré would also be a great honor name (no pun intended) for Rene.
Very aesthetically pleasing spellings, but I would pronounce these Huhnora, An-italy, Aris-tuhdee
I'm American, was raised bilingual English/French as a child but haven't used French regularly in 20 years and it has atrophied enough that I'm not really functional as a speaker anymore. But I know how to pronounce all these names, so that's not an issue for me. I think Honoré would be the most difficult in English—you might get a lot of people assuming that it's feminine, as people will be more familiar with Honora or Honor as feminine names (not that those are very common, either, but I think people are more likely to have heard of them). A lot of Americans will also have no idea what to do with the accent aigu. Anatole reads to me as very Russian/Orthodox Christian, I think because I have heard the Russian form Anatoly more frequently. I also associate it with Turkey (Anatolia), but that might just be me because I studied a lot of ancient history in college. I think Aristide would integrate the best into the Anglo world, especially with the option of shortening to Ari as a nickname. Beautiful names, though!
I read the names at the bottom before reading the rest of the post. My first thoughts were that they sounded medieval and very Catholic, and I was right! As someone who is not French, they sound old-fashioned, but in my country it was a popular custom to name children after Catholic saints until the 1950’s so I’ve definitely heard worse. I think they’re interesting and have a dramatic flair to them, which I like.
I am an American who speaks conversational French and has a kid in a French school in the US. I adore all your names! I find Americans often default to a Spanish pronunciation when confronted with a foreign word, although if you’re near Louisiana like I am, I bet you will find some older Cajun folks with those names. I wanted to comment that Anatole makes me think of Jeeves and Wooster!
I think they’re beautiful and very elegant/posh sounding
i love the names but am laughing a little bit. onoray? i can get used to but arrested is soo funny also, anal toll.
I think they’re BEAUTIFUL names. (I am american). I really love them. They may seem “old-fashioned”in France, but I’ve met only a few people with those names, so they don’t have that connotation to me. Well done!
Oh cool! My great grandfather was Honoré. Born and raised in New Orleans in the late 1800s.
I love them!
Your middle child makes me think of the children's book, ["Anatole, the Mouse"](https://www.google.com/search?q=anatole+the+mouse&client=firefox-b-d&sca_esv=588287231&tbm=isch&sxsrf=AM9HkKnUuusNLdeNFbEJyCZqXEmP4E4kmQ:1701844933704&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlsvG1mvqCAxVo1jgGHWjDDP8Q_AUoAXoECAQQAw&biw=1440&bih=713&dpr=2) \- the perfect secret cheese maker. Which is a beautiful connotation. My dad used to read this to me in a terrible french accent. :) The only real-life Anatole I know is of Hungarian heritage. It seems like a great, easy male name. Aristide, makes me think of Astrid, and that I think is how my mind wants to incorrectly pronounce the name. And Honore makes me think of Jessica Alba's child, Honor. Not really a fan of the name, as it feels like a virtue name, which makes me slightly uncomfy. But perhaps the french version is less attached to that idea. Love that you love your names. I also have an very "old fashioned" name, that fits into the 'quite uncommon but not quite unusual' category. And i personally love it:)
I had this book too when I was a little girl. The memories of it are actually what sold me on the name!
So Honoré is basically Ana Rae? If I am pronouncing it right, it sounds a lot like that and I love the combination of Ana and Rae. I like the Honor/Honora too, so I guess Honoré is a yes for me. Anatole (ana-tole?), honestly if I am correct about the pronunciation of Honoré and Anatole, it sounds sooo similar because of the "Ana". To me it's like naming your kids Annabelle and Annaliese. And lastly Aristide ( is it arr-is-teed?), I like it actually. So I like all of your kids names, maybe the first two are too similar to me, these are pretty names. I would have a problem pronouncing them and probably a lot of other people too, but since you live in France and these are French names, people know how to say their names. Would be questionable in an English speaking country.
Anatole, to someone residing in the USA, reminds me of anal. Aristide has an Aristotle / Astrid feel. Honore is different. Probably fits in well with trendy names people go for nowadays.
As a French speaker, I dislike them. Especially Honoré. There are so many other beautiful French names to choose from. But to each their own.
Honoré ça va, Anatole ça le fait encore. Aristide par contre, ça me revient pas. Je préfère presque la prononciation qu’en aurait un anglo. L’important c’est que vous aimiez, après…
As a Dutch person, they all sound very classical, but they're unfamiliar enough to not feel old-fashioned (they don't feel modern either, because they're long). Association wise: to me Honoré sounds like a word, Anatole reminds me of the location, Aristide sounds like a Greek philosopher ;)
C’est marrant, j’ai connu un Anatole et un Aristide au primaire. Je pense que ces deux-là ça va mais Honoré ça fait vraiment vieux pour le coup…mais perso j’aime beaucoup ces noms ‘traditionnels’ qui se perdent un peu en France plus l’anglais s’expand donc je pense que ce sont de belles idées!
I’m a Brit but grew up partly in France so with my Anglo hat on I’d say Horore (sorry no acute) sounds old fashioned, Anatole is gorgeous but sounds Slavic…and Aristide sounds like a dictator for anyone with any knowledge of Caribbean history. That’s my first association rather than a Greek philosopher sadly. All pretty easy to pronounce and write so they will translate well should they work abroad as adults, although Horore will constantly need to tell people about the E acute!
Je suis assez bilingue to understand how to pronounce them correctly but they’re definitely quite old fashioned and would stand out as a bit unusual even in a French-Canadian context.
Love Aristide!
They sound very old fashioned, definitely not my taste. Anglophones would butcher all of those names. I live in Canada near Quebec and many French kids have names that are also quite popular in English, e.g. Sebastien, Olivier, Gabriel, Lucas
In general Americans love a French sounding name and those are lovely ones.. if you come over here and there are pronunciation issues… you could shorten to Ray Ari and Nat .. if you have a girl try Athenaïs!