Samuel
Rousseau (Dépt. d'Histoire, Université de Montréal) under the guidance of Bertrand Desjardins
(aggregate research and co-founder of the RPQU), has standardized French
surnames for the University’s “Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH),”
a large aggregated database of individuals, couples and parish acts in Québec
from 1621 through 1799.
The
Registre de la Population du Québec Ancien
(RPQA) = a data base comprising of more than 700,000 baptismal, marriage and death
certificates registered before 1800. Many of these were very poorly transcribed
(per the Université de Montréal), and thus a methodology for supplying a
standard form for variation on a surname was formed.
The
standard supplied by the PRDH for Marcotte is ‘Marcot,’ despite irrefutable
archival evidence that the name originated and was customarily spelled in
I
contacted the PRDH and provided copies of the baptism registry entries for
pioneers Jacques and Nicolas Marcotte, clearly showing the Marcotte spelling,
and they kindly provided this explanation:
“This
might disappoint you but we do not standardize names following a nice
methodology based on a profound knowledge of French names and such. Our
standardization is strictly pragmatice, and is essentially based on the most
common form used for a given name in the parish registers. Although the first
immigrants were definitely named «Marcotte», it happens that the name was
spelled Marcot more often in the colony, hence the form we use for displaying
it. Several names ended up being written differently from what the person who
introduced the name used as a spelling.”
Likewise,
the standard form for names like LeBlanc, rely upon grammatical rules,
and not historical or etymological origin, and suggest a standard spelling of
Le Blanc or Leblanc (two separate words or one with only the first letter
capitalized), in contrast to the historical origins of the Acadian branch,
which avows LeBlanc.
The
Dictionary of Canadian
Biography Online ¹ explains:
““In the case of French names, La, Le, Du, Des, and sometimes De are considered part of the name and are capitalized.
When both parts of the name are capitalized in the signature, French style
treats the family name as two words; however, with individuals who were integrated
into an Anglophone milieu, this rule of style has been applied only when it was
confirmed by a signature.”
Direct
extract from the above source using an Acadian expedition as an example:
“Leblanc made a
notable contribution to the expedition led by François Du Pont* Duvivier against
In
the above paragraph note the use of Leblanc, but not LeBlanc. Du Pont, but not DuPont.
Duvivier but not
DuVivier.
Other
examples: Le Blanc, Le Neuf, La Bourbonnière, if the signature shows the
second word as capitalized, otherwise Leblanc, Leneuf, Labourbonnière. With names using an estate, such as titled
nobility, the preposition (de, sur, des, etc.) is not capitalized, therefore:
de Guise, du Bellay. de Calmont, de La Tour, de Gaulle,
des Ormeaux, unless preceded immediately by a French preposition.
Example: Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, Henri de
Guise, but les mémoires de De Gaulle
These
rules derive from French grammar, style and standardization, and not common
usage. The Acadian French, for example, were forcibly integrated into an
Anglophone milieu, so Leblanc would – by rule – seem to be the standardized
spelling of that surname. However,
common etiquette dictates that a family may spell their name HOWEVER they want.
Most Acadians Le Blanc families traditionally spell and sign their name as one
word with two capitals: “LeBlanc,” and some would argue strongly that it is the
“correct” spelling for Acadians of that name, while “Leblanc” differentiates the
Québécois. That opinion, however, does not derive from the above-stated French
style, grammar and standardization, but rather Acadian practice and family
tradition. One finds many other examples of such deviation from the rule,
including such notables as Daphne DuMaurier and Cecil B. DeMille. One might also note that
neither seventeenth- or eighteenth-century Acadian or French Canadian colonists
were students of linguistic style, and they or their notaries signed their
names however they wished, sometimes variably from one occasion to
another.
At
the Center of Acadian Studies’ University of Moncton site, Acadian genealogist
Stephen White consistently spells the name as LeBlanc throughout his
mini-biography of this Acadian family, although in his 1992 work Patronymes acadiens/Acadian Family published
by Les Editions d'Acadie, he used the more stylistically standard form Le Blanc
So,
what is correct? a) Le Blanc, b) Leblanc, c) LeBlanc, d) all of the above.
Answer:
d) all of the above.
The
Université de Montréal’s Department of French Studies and Linguistics advises
that however an ancestor signed his or her own name takes preference; therefore
in both of the above instances the non-standard form is actually more appropriate.
The two-word Le Blanc spelling tends to be a more traditional and grammatical French
spelling, but a general rule is not always conclusive, rather just more of a
useful too in searching names indices and databases where the names have been
standardized.
____________
¹
- The Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online is a Internet version of the Dictionary of
Canadian Biography/Dictionnaire biographique du Canada (DCB/DBC), a major research and publishing project launched by the
University of Toronto and the Université Laval in 1959.
Other sources:
Typographie française en ligne, Synapse Développement, éditeur du correcteur orthographique et grammatical Cordial.