cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

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In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

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From:

selenak

As far as I know, you can, though bear in mind as with English nobility, a name consists of two names.

English Example:

George Gordon, Lord Byron.

French Examples:

Armand de Gramon, Comte de Guiche

Marie de Rohan, Duchesse de Chevreuse

In terms of fictional characters, it's worth pointing out that for example Athos, the Musketeer in Dumas' novels, is the Comte de la Fère, while his adopted son Raoul later is the Vicomte de Bragelonne, so if you have a Vicomte whose father is still alive, they might have different titles.

In general, I'd go by picking a popular French surname and combine it with a place name as the title, so, for example:

X Garnier, Vicomte de Peillon.

And for the first name, if needed, I'd pick something combined with "-Marie", because that's a very period French Catholic thing "Jean-Marie" being the easiest example, and immediately gives your character a historic flair.

From:

luzula

Thanks, that's very helpful!

Armand de Gramon, Comte de Guiche
Hmmm. So do family names also often contain a "de"?

From:

selenak

Seems so. Though sometimes it becomes integrated, as in "du Plessis", "Duplessis" - you see both spellings, with the later dominating the closer we get to the present. And of course, in the 18th century, you have a lot of middle class folk adding a "de" as self ennoblement, and then dumping it when the times change, as with Georges Danton - becomes up and coming lawyer d'Anton - becomes revolutionary Danton. (Robespierre as an up and coming lawyer also had a stint as de Robespierre before getting rid of the de again.) Also our boy Voltaire, Francois Arouet, who became Monsieur de Voltaire, no first name, because he could. (And "Voltaire" of course, as a word, was his creation, it's not a place or town.) But I take it your two characters actually are nobility.

From:

luzula

Huh, that's fascinating, how people changed their names back and forth in response to changing political winds! Thanks.

From:

cahn

Ah! I knew I'd seen the spellings d'Anton and de Robespierre before, and I'd always kind of not known what to do with them -- that makes a lot of sense.