I’ve always liked first names. I must have been in third year, I borrowed books from the library, I remember, on the meaning of first names.
” Oh ! Are you going to have a little brother or sister? » the librarian said at the counter, as if my mother were pregnant.
No. It was one of my great pleasures, holed up alone: discovering what these pages had to say about the origin, the dominant features of the first names that had been chosen for me, my friends at school, those who weren’t and the boys I found cute. On a separate list: the children I might one day have.
Was this my first real dazzlement by words? I believe so. The world of first names is fascinating. Straddling something very concrete and mythological. Because we must not believe everything we imagine, or everything that is found, despite us, in the collective unconscious.
We may be cowboys, but we want to be noble and gentle. To belong to something bigger. Or to be associated with the velvety qualities that attract us: “I would have chosen Madeleine for myself, for the elegance and originality,” Julie born in the 1980s told me.
“Claude, especially for Debussy and Sautet. It’s modern for a woman like Sarraute and Pompidou,” says Lyne.
“I would have preferred Claudia, but hey…” Claudette wrote to me. A real Claudia retorts: “No, Constance! That’s sumptuous! »
My long-time friend Marie Hélène even told me that as a child, she admired a girl older than her called Geneviève. She then forced her parents to call her Geneviève, otherwise she wouldn’t react when they spoke to her! Pig head, you say? A whim that lasted a year…
“It’s crazy, I did the same thing with the first name Nathalie ! » replied our friend Marie-Pierre, who hated her “Pierre”, because it evoked the image of a gentleman.
“I wanted a first name that ended in has or in i like all the other little girls! »
Ah, OK, like Julie, the most beautiful girl in school? (A classic, if I trust the messages sent.)
But today, my favorite rocker, would you prefer that I call you Marie, or Marie-Pierre? Oh, I just found: Marie-Roc.
There are those who, later in their lives, will lasso their appellation. The queen of magic tofu, Caroline Huard, who you may have seen on TV, says there were six Carolines in one of her classes in elementary school, then three in the clinic where she later worked. “That’s a bit why I like to be called Loounie. »
When her parents separated, a little girl around me felt the need to become Sam. She also asked for her hair to be cut short, and for us to provide her with the clothes that came with it.
After a few months, she became Lucie again.
“With hindsight, I understand that it’s as if,” the father confided to me, “with masculine features, she equipped herself with more masculine qualities to face the challenges and the pain she was experiencing. » Then, one day, she didn’t need Sam anymore.
Sylvain (Cormier, who you also read in this newspaper) also touched me this week. Adopted at the age of five months, he supposes that he must have had another first name for five months: “My adoptive father said my name was Gérard. I had a narrow escape with Sylvain. I always liked it, for two reasons. Sylvain as in sylvan, which relates to the forest… and Cormier, a domestic tree. Half forest, half city: my name has meaning in lowercase letters. Second reason, my brother’s name is Vincent. So I always thought that our first names linked us: Sylvincent…”
So, even if we sometimes want the vastness, the Far West, we can also, with our first name, get even closer to ourselves. The melody we were born with, which will be said most often by the people who love us.
Actress Dominique Pétin confides: “Astawe, my mother’s indigenous name. »
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Let’s finish with Sandy’s ride.
“I have long wanted to have a more French name, like Sarah Tremblay. My mother, fan of the film Grease, always told me that if I was born a blonde, it would be Sandy (for the role of Olivia Newton-John); Cindy if I was dark. Now, at 36, I finally met the man of my life, Danny, with whom I am expecting a little Melody…”
Well, I said you shouldn’t believe everything you say, but…