Names from Artois, 1601
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Names from Artois, 1601

was: "French Names from 1601"
by Aryanhwy merch Catmael (Sara L. Uckelman)

© 2002, 2004, 2008Sara L. Uckelman; all rights reserved
last updated 31Dec08

The following are the names of about 600 men and women listed in tax rolls taken in 1601 for for Roubaix and Néchin, two cities in Artois near the modern Belgian border. Many of the names exhibit Dutch influence.

Some notes on name construction: By the 16th century, bynames in France were no longer used literally; rather, they had become fixed, inherited surnames, passed on from father to son. Therefore, a man named Jehan de Charlemaison would have this surname not because he lived at Charlemaison, but rather because his father's surname was de Charlemaison. Wives, however, did not usually have the same surname as their husbands in this source.

The majority of the men are listed simply with a given name and a surname. 12% of the people are also identified as a child of one of their (usually deceased) parents, e.g. Abraham Hellin, fils de feu Bettremieux (this would be fille de feu in the case of a woman; the phrase translates to "son/daughter of the late..."). Of these 12%, only one was known as the son of his mother, e.g. Antoine Degrimonpon, fils de feu Isabeau; the rest were all known as sons of their fathers.

These statistics are roughly the same for the women, too. There is one example of a woman being identified as her husband's widow, e.g. Marguerite Debouvine, veuve de feu Pierre Jan Delespierre, 'Marguerite Debouvine, widow of the late Pierre Jan Delespierre'.

Masculine Given Names    Feminine Given Names    Surnames    Raw Data

Source: Les comptes du vingtièmes de l'an 1601: Pour Roubaix et Néchin (Royére), Table des patronymes par Maxime Senave (Flanders, Hainaut, Artois: Groupement Généalogique de la Région du Nord, Collection de Travaux et Etudes Généalogiques, ND).

The original article can be found at: http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/french1601.html