Popular and unique baby names in Quebec (Canada), 2009

Flag of Quebec
Flag of Quebec

The most popular baby names in the Canadian province of Quebec in 2009 were:

Girl Names

  1. Léa
  2. Florence
  3. Emma
  4. Rosalie
  5. Jade
  6. Juliette
  7. Camille
  8. Gabrielle
  9. Maika
  10. Mia

Boy Names

  1. William
  2. Olivier
  3. Thomas
  4. Nathan
  5. Alexis
  6. Felix
  7. Gabriel
  8. Samuel
  9. Antoine
  10. Xavier

Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time for the fun stuff. Here are some of the baby names that were bestowed only once in Quebec last year. (I didn’t see another Kierkegaard, but I did spot a Rousseau!)

  • Attila Norbert (boy)
  • Aztlan (boy) – Legendary homeland of the Nahua (Aztecs).
  • Bienheureux (boy) – French for “very happy” or “blessed.”
  • Billary (girl) – Bill + Hilary? Could it be some sort of tribute?
  • Carnegie Ursula (girl)
  • Fraidy (girl) – I was actually having a conversation about about cats when I noticed this one.
  • Galadrielle (girl) – Galadriel with a French twist.
  • God-Day (boy)
  • Greace (girl) and Alizee Greace (girl) – Is Greace supposed to be Grace? Looks more like “grease” to me.
  • Great-Rousseau (girl)
  • Harvest (girl)
  • Heavenly-Trinity (girl)
  • Jeanne-Bosco (girl) – Surely inspired by St. John Bosco.
  • Kinda Ahmed (girl) – Not definitely Ahmed, but kinda Ahmed.
  • Klervi (girl) – It looks made-up, but it’s not. Comes from the name of an obscure saint.
  • Limerick (boy)
  • Nervastone (boy)
  • Precious-Angel (girl)
  • Rafter (boy)
  • Ratzy (girl) – Well, much of January ’09 was part of the Year of the Rat. Maybe that’s where this comes from.
  • Rose-Desneiges (girl) – Des neiges is French for “of the snows.”
  • Schneider-Himrick (boy) – Sounds like a tool company.
  • Shadey (girl)
  • Syntyche (girl) – Means “with fate” in ancient Greek.
  • Tayden (boy) – First time I’ve seen this particular -ayden.
  • Turquoise Gold (girl) – School colors, maybe?
  • Wilberlyne (girl) – Kind of a cute way to feminize Wilber.

Have you had a chance to look through the list? If so, did you notice any interesting names?

Source: List of Baby Names – Retraite Québec

Image: Adapted from Flag of Quebec (public domain)

6 thoughts on “Popular and unique baby names in Quebec (Canada), 2009

  1. I love Harvest as well! Such wonderful associations like you said. A GP of mine along with Comfort :)
    I haven’t had time to look thoroughly through it, but I found Silya/Sylia and it reminds me of the Scandinavian Silja/Silje which is a form of Cecilia which I guess Silya/Sylia is as well (Celia perhaps) :)

    It’s also really unusual for me that they list names only one person has been given! In Norway such information is considered sensitive and unless 4 people were given the name during one of the past 10 years, they won’t list the name in the statistics. It’s also enforced when 3 or less persons in all of Norway have that name. They won’t say how many, only that there are 3,2,1 or 0 with that name currently living in Norway. It’s a frustration for me since I look for less used names, and I would often like to know if a name has been used the past couple of years and I can’t know! But I guess it’s a good thing :)

  2. I wonder about the pronunciation of some of these. Shadey for Sade, maybe? Kin-da or Kind-a? Raht-zee or Rat-zee? Schneider-Himrick sounds like a last name, not a first.

    I find Maika and Lea to be interesting, since they’re not common stateside.

  3. A Harvest? Harvest used to be a GP of mine when I was a teenager. Of course, I would never consider using it now.

    These are some exciting finds:

    •Attila Norbert
    •Galadrielle
    •Klervi
    •Rose-Desneiges
    •Syntyche
    •Turquoise-I must admit, I quite like this

  4. @C in DC – Good point. My first impressions — Kinda looks like kinda, Shadey looks like shady — may not reflect the correct pronunciation of certain names.

    (Wouldn’t it be interesting if Shadey was for Sade? Couple of decades late, but that’s okay.)

  5. I had particular interest in this list because my son was born in 2009. DH and I named him Ewan (one of 4 according to the list). We chose it because it goes well with his Scottish surname and it can still be pronounced by my Polish relatives.
    I’m surprised that there were more Romeos than Ewans, though I can see how Romeo would be more popular than Ewan among the French-speaking.
    I was wondering about Even…. Is it an alternate spelling for Evan or is it supposed to be pronouced “even”?

  6. @Anna – I’d guess that most people use Even as a form of Evan. But I wouldn’t doubt that some have used it to simply represent the vocabulary word, for whatever reason.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.