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Maximilienne?
Thought I'd share a sighting: a girl at a birthday party I went to, called Maximilienne. Apparently she's 'less than a quarter' French, speaks GCSE French according to her and her parents found the name in a name book and liked it. I know all this because my friend thought she was French and I tried out my bad French to a blank look... woo, the random conversations being a language geek gets you. I've never met an actual French person called Maximilienne and I guess being in England she gets called Maximilian a lot but it goes along with my previous find of Pantelejmona as an unusual female-version sighting. And I kind of find it pretty, in a weird way. She went by 'Milly' and kind of 'Max', but while Max is very butch for a girl's name, I thought Maximilienne was an interesting new long version of the nickname Milly. What do you think? Anyway, this got me thinking in my ridiculous multidirectional convoluted way of mine...1) Maximilienne. What do you think of it? What do you think of Milly as nickname? And combos...?
I think it needs a short but feminine middle name, and thought Maximilienne Rose was pretty, but Rose is such a filler, so what about...?
Maximilienne Viola
Maximilienne Sylvie
Maximilienne Soraya (wow, woo for random namebank combos. I like its weirdness, but it doesn't flow well)
Maximilienne Rosalie (not much better in filler-ness than Rose)
Maximilienne Lyra
Maximilienne Laure
Maximilienne Iris
Maximilienne Coralie...Oh, I fail. Any ideas?2) Interesting French female names with a male parallel, origin or a similar male name suddenly interested me... what do you think of...?Albertine*
Andrée
Augustine* - perfectly feasible, but I first came across Augustine as a man's name, so I can't really shake that idea.
Axelle
Benjamine* - is it odd that if I could use it, I'd be tempted?
Claudette
Cyrielle - I've met a Cyrielle. Pronounced close enough to the English word 'cereal' that it was a mindboggling challenge not to call her Cereal.
Dominique - not really unusual...
Donatienne
Doriane* - Dorian's always going to be male to me, but I like the name and it's an appealing idea...
Emmanuelle - I'd love this name if I hadn't learnt about it's adult film connotations
Fabienne*
Faustine* - LOVE!
Fernande
Gilbertine - Gilbert is so clunky that this is almost intriguing
Josèphe
Julienne* - I think I might prefer this to Julia/Julie/Juliana etc
Léonide
Léopoldine* - ditto goes for Leopold... wow
Lucienne*
Ludivine*
Marine
Perrine
Raphaëlle
Rolande* - I have a thing for the name Roland, sorry
Romaine* - I've met several.
Sébastienne
Sévérine
Victoire / Victorine* - neither are directly linked to Victor, in fact, Victoire isn't even a female version of a male name, but I've been thinking about adding a good friend/family-friend called Viktor to my name honouring list for various reasons, but hate both the name Viktor and Victoria. So this is a tempting option. Victorine is charming.
Zéphyrine* - Apparently a female version of a male name. It feels otherwise. Met in real life too. Like any? Hate any? Know anyone called them?I guess I found that in cases such as Gilbertine and Rolande, they're such underused, untrendy and very, in my mind, masculine names that simply adding -e, -tine etc isn't enough to make them seem feasible as female names in England, for example, even nowadays, but it was still interesting.
Soooo...Have you seen any interesting (not necessarily) French female versions of fusty, unusual or just inherently in your eyes male feeling names?
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I like feminized French names that can come off masculine- because pronounced right it sounds great. I have a French name myself and I'm 0 percent French haha. I like Fabienne, and Doriane. I also like Caspienne and Vespasienne- except that's apparently a term for the bathroom/toilet in French. Some ideas..
Cyprienne
Flavienne
Hadrienne
Julienne
Sextiline
Valerienne
Vibienne
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1) I think Maximilienne is pretty! I looked up its stats in France and it has totally fallen out of favour, and doesn't appear to have been used once since about 1990, but it peaked in about 1910, and I tend to gravitate toward older names.
Milly is cute. I like:
Maximilienne Laure and Maximilienne Iris. The other ones are either too long for me with Maximilienne, or are too not-French and clash in my mind.
Maximilienne Celeste
Maximilienne Flore
Maximilienne Gaëlle
Maximilienne Hortense (amazing!)
Maximilienne Julie
Maximilienne Olympe
Maximilienne Yseult2) I love: Fabienne, Faustine, Ludivine (there's an actress with this name. I know a Ludmila, and I also came cross the Spanish Luzdivina and the Catalan Llumdivina this year and I think those are really cool, too)
Sébastienne (I alsomost feel guilty for liking this, but I'm not sure why, haha), ZéphyrineI like: Augustine, Cyrielle, Donatienne (this is really interesting!), Emmanuelle, Julienne, Léopoldine, Perrine, Raphaëlle, SévérineBenjamine catches my attention, too. Like Sébastienne, I feel kind of guilty about it, but I can't help it. It's used in France, too, so that helps me not feel as bad.

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This message was edited 7/11/2011, 12:53 PM

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Too long for my taste--I prefer Maxine, which I think is just great.I come from a huge Franco-American family, with oodles of 1st, 2nd, & 3rd cousins. Often, a male name is made feminine by the addition of "et" or "ette". A cursory (incomplete--I can dig deeper if you'd like) listing of names of female cousins:Genevieve
Marguerite
Xacinthe
Helene
Angelique
Josephet
Vitaline
Aurelie
Germaine
Venerance
Blanche
Annette
Noeline
Pierrette
Lise
Solange
Denise
EstelleFrom your list, I especially like Rolande and Perrine.
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