Never read in the papers about a French Premier who was named, say, “Napoleon Mitterand” or such.
Do the French, or Corsicans as well, use the name Napoleon or did they throw it in the ash bin?
I think that the only people named Napoleon these days are fated to play for the Oakland Raiders.
examples
Apparently Oakland has some sort of contractual obligation to draft or sign any college senior named Napoleon. Can’t explain it; it just is so.
My first thought was "What about Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon?
But, despite the Gallic name, he was born in Michigan. French ancestry, though:
Go to this site, type Napoleon into the name box and a graph will display showing its frequency in France over the last century.
That’s a fun little website. For comparison’s sake, I also ran the names “Robespierre” and “Richelieu” through. Not popular names, but I surprisingly got some hits on both!
I knew a guy named Napoleon Desautels. An American of Quebecois ancestry.
The Napoleonic Code, I suppose.
No, in Louisiana, they have the Napoleonic Code.
It’s hell being your straight man.
Well played, sir!
Napoléon is a given name, Robespierre and Richelieu are family names.
Napoléon was very popular in Canada about a hundred years ago. This site (in French) by an onomastician, shows a frequency graph for both Napoléon and Joséphine that displays an interesting correlation. In 1860 3.3% of new born French Canadian boys are named Napoléon an between 1865-1869, it is the second most popular name after the utterly ubiquitous Joseph. Interestingly, the author notes that there does not appear to be any Napoléon born before 1800.
A long way away from France, but there was also a former president of El Salvador, the late José Napoleón Duarte.
French here, 28 years old and I don’t know anyone in either my generation or my parents’ called Napoléon. Maybe as a middle name (pretty much anything goes for middle names), but as a first name it would be very weird and old fashioned to me.
What about the name Adolf in Germany?
BTW, I think this is a Dynamite thread.