French names for boys and girls: say them with confidence

French names are given names that parents choose freely: INSEE, France’s statistics office, says there is no list of authorised first names [1]. This page covers the most common French boy names and French girl names from two official 2025 lists, what a first name is called in French, how to say a few of them, how compound names such as Jean-Pierre are written, and what a name day is. For introducing yourself, see my name is in French. For the letters and accents you will meet in names, see the French alphabet. For pet names, see French terms of endearment.

What is a first name in French?

A first name is le prénom in French, and a last name is le nom or le nom de famille. INSEE’s name file records only the first of a child’s given names [1].

So a person with several names on their birth record shows up under one. INSEE adds one more rule: names must be written with the letters used for French, so a letter such as ñ is not allowed [1]. A baby named Rareș appears as RARES in the file [1].

What are the most common French boy names?

For babies born in France in 2025, INSEE’s top boy is Gabriel [1]. The counts are births, rounded to the nearest 5 [1].

In Québec the 2025 list comes from Retraite Québec, built from Allocation famille data [3]. Its top five boys are Noah (618), Léo (553), Liam (484), Arthur (482) and Louis (471) [3]. Noah was first for a fifth year in a row [3]. Four names sit in both top lists: Noah, Léo, Louis and Arthur [1][3]. Do not compare the counts across the two lists. They count different groups of children.

Older men carry different names. Retraite Québec’s list of people who asked for their RRQ pension in 2025 starts with Michel, Daniel, Alain, Pierre and Sylvain [3]. In France, Jean was the top boy’s name in 1946, given to 12.0% of boys born that year [2]. Gabriel’s share in 2025 is 1.4% [2].

What are the most common French girl names?

For girls born in France in 2025, INSEE’s top name is Louise [1].

Retraite Québec’s 2025 top five for girls born in Québec is Emma (485), Olivia and Charlotte (printed in one rank-2 row with a count of 416), Alice (394) and Florence (387), with Sofia (367) fifth [3]. The two lists share Emma and Alice [1][3]. Retraite Québec says names given to fewer than five children are removed from its bank, and that the bank is updated each spring with the previous year’s data [4].

Women who asked for their RRQ pension in 2025 most often carry the names Sylvie, Manon, Johanne, Linda and Chantal [3]. In France, Marie was the top girl’s name in 1946, given to 7.3% of girls born that year, against 1.0% for Louise in 2025 [2].

Why do accents matter in French names?

Accents are part of the name, and INSEE’s file keeps them: it prints LÉO, RAPHAËL and MAËL [1]. Retraite Québec’s table prints capitals without accents, LEO, though its text writes Léo [3]. Both are the same name.

For the full list of French letters and accents, use the French alphabet.

How do compound French names like Jean-Pierre work?

A compound first name is written with a hyphen. The Office québécois de la langue française says compound first names usually take a hyphen, and that the elements of a compound name used as a person’s usual name are always linked by one [5]. Its examples are Jean-Marie, Marie-Josée and, abbreviated, J.-P., where the hyphen stays [5]. Jean-Pierre and Marie-Claire follow the same pattern.

The Office lists the cases where the hyphen goes:

• A person with several legal first names, only one in use. No hyphen: they are separated by a space, as in Marie Anne Julie [5].
• A first name followed by an initial. No hyphen, as in Renée L. Roy [5].
• A first name from another language. No hyphen, as in Maria Teresa [5].

INSEE notes the same trouble from the data side: in the civil register, several first names are separated by spaces, so compound names written with a space are hard to spot [1]. Say each part in full, one after the other: Jean, then Pierre.

What is a name day in French?

A name day is la fête of a person, the day of the saint whose name they carry. Larousse defines fête in this sense as a day devoted to the memory of a saint, such as one whose name a person received as a first name [6]. The saint is le saint, and the verb fêter means to celebrate. This page does not list dates for individual names.

Which French names are also everyday words?

Some French names are ordinary nouns, so their meaning is in the dictionary. Three of them are in INSEE’s 2025 top 10 for girls [1].

• Rose is la fleur of the rosier, with many perfumed petals, in Larousse [7].
• Jade is a very hard rock, green to white, in Larousse [8]. The noun is masculine in the dictionary: du jade [8].
• Ambre is a masculine noun, de l’ambre, and also names a golden yellow or reddish colour in Larousse [9].

The meaning of most other French names comes from older words and saints’ names, and this page gives none for them. Rose, Jade and Ambre are the exceptions you can read in a dictionary.

Common mistakes

• Reading j like an English j. In Jules and Jade it is the soft sound in measure.
• Dropping the hyphen in Jean-Pierre. The Office says a compound usual name takes one [5].
• Adding a hyphen between a first name and a middle initial. The Office says no hyphen there [5].
• Reading an old ranking as today’s. The tables above are for 2025 births and Québec’s list is rebuilt each year [3][4].
• Comparing counts across France and Québec. The lists come from different sources and populations [1][3].
• Trusting a names page from a blog, including this one. Rankings and dictionary entries change. Compare the official page’s date with the date at the top of this one.

Sources