All posts in Surnames & Name Origins

“They changed our name at Ellis Island.” Nearly every family with immigrant roots has heard that sentence. For French families it is usually wrong, and the truth is more useful to a researcher. Names did change, often dramatically, but they changed in particular ways and…

Martin, Bernard, Petit, Thomas: the most common French surnames are familiar to anyone who has spent time in France. They are also a lesson in how to read statistics. Rankings differ by source, by era, and by region, and a very common surname makes genealogy…

A French surname often carries a regional signature. Some names are so closely tied to one corner of the country that a researcher can guess a département from the spelling alone. This guide shows the main regional patterns, how to use them, and where they…

If you cannot find your French ancestor under the name you know, the problem is often not the person but the spelling. French surnames appear in many forms across the records, and a search that insists on one spelling will miss relatives sitting in plain…

Most French surnames can be sorted into a handful of types, and once you know the types, the meaning of many names becomes clear. A name may tell you what an ancestor did for a living, where he lived, what he looked like, or whose…