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French baby names

French names are largely Latin roots reshaped by a thousand years of French sound patterns, layered with the names of saints and royalty. The Norman Conquest carried many of them into England, where some stayed unmistakably French — Camille, Étienne, Margaux — and others were absorbed so completely that their French origin is easy to forget.

Accents are part of many French spellings (Élodie, Noël) but are often dropped in English-language systems. Decide whether you will keep the accent officially, knowing it may appear and disappear across documents.