“La Femme” is French for “the woman”. Apparently (and confirmed by the IMDB at http://us.imdb.com/Title?0100263 ), “Nikita” is the name of the title character.
My questions: Is this movie based on a real person whose name was “Nikita”? If so, was she French? (Somehow, the letter “k” looks odd in a French word or name. French tends to have much softer sounds.) And if not, why did the authors choose such a misleading name for that character? Am I the only person who hears “Nikita” and automatically thinks “Khrushchev”? (I’m 46, by the way.)
I think the character was just created for the original movie, in which the woman was French. In the series, although I don’t think they have ever really talked about the character’s nationality, the actress who plays her is Australian, I believe. But that secret agency is in Paris.
I wouldn’t really call “Nikita” a specifically French name, but the French alphabet does contain the letter K. It might be used mostly or solely for foreign words, though, since the K sound is made by CH followed by a vowel other than E or I.
I also think of Nikita K. whenever I watch the show.
Yes Pita Wilson is Australian, they film it in Canada, where it’s supposed to take place I have no idea. According to the Pop Up Video for one of Elton John’s songs they say Nikita is only a male’s name, and I think they said it was Russian. not that I put a whole lot into the “facts” of Popup Video, but THEY claim they are 100% correct in them.
The original Nikita was played by Anne Parrilaud (sp?) who is French. Nikita wasn’t the characters real name but her code name. Why did they pick Nikita as a code name? It doesn’t sound French. Who cares? Double-oh Seven doesn’t sound particularly British, but it seems to work ok as a code name. Cardinal is the code name of Tom Clancy’s Amercian spy in deep cover in Russia. Cardinal is neither an American name nor a Russian name.
Actually, I think her codename was Josephine in the American remake too (Point Of No Return). I really liked that movie, but I never did see the original.