French Canadian Name Generator

Québec's population descends largely from a few thousand French settlers who arrived before 1760, then grew mostly through natural increase rather than immigration. A founding family like Pierre Tremblay's could have tens of thousands of descendants three centuries later, which is why Tremblay, Gagnon, Roy and Côté appear everywhere in Québec phone books.

Québécois names are the French Canadian names of Québec: Tremblay, Gagnon, Bouchard, Lavoie and the like. Acadian names belong to the French communities of the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI) and include LeBlanc, Cormier, Arsenault, Thériault and Doucet, many of which also turned up in Louisiana as Cajun names. Franco-Ontarian and Métis families draw on both pools.

They peaked between the 1940s and 1990s and are less common for newborns today, but millions of adults carry them, so they are perfect for characters born before 2000. Contemporary Québec parents lean toward short single names such as Léa, Rosalie, Emma, Félix, Léo and Thomas, or international names like Liam and Olivia.

Yes. The older names in the list (Onésime, Télesphore, Exilda, Délima, Hormidas, Philomène) are drawn from the kind of names found in 19th-century Québec parish records, and the surnames are the real established families of New France and Acadia. Pair an old-stock given name with one of the top surnames for a convincing habitant or mill-town character.