My great-great-grandmother seems to have written both Camille and Camilla as her first name. Are they interchangible in French? Are they pronounced as you'd pronounce them in English? She was born in Paris if that helps.
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10-01-04, 11:03 PM
FredPuli
Is it her name or her handwriting that is a puzzle? Smile

Camille is and was a name both for a boy and a girl. The French composer Camille Saint-Saens (Carnival of the Animals etc) was a noted male bearer of it. Now you've got me trying to remember how France Musique radio announcers pronounce his name Big Grin My thinking is it ought to be and is like Cam-eel as in 'mille' (thousand) and not like Cameeee as in 'fille' (girl) As it's 6 a.m. here (Antibes) and a Saturday I'm a bit short of neighbours to ask !(Perhaps I'll ask in the bread shop)

Camilla is not a name seen in France outside press reports on 'Queen' Camilla (Parker-Bowles) and doesn't figure on the lists of girl's names I've French 'googled' so far. Perhaps your ancestor was ahead of her time ?

10-01-04, 11:29 PM
mozart56
I agree with Fred on this.I have a 3 years old niece (real cutie) who's first name is "Camille" and I have a 65 years old male friend who's name is "Camille". No Camillas known in my "French family"

Funny enough though ,the male's name is not pronounced like the female's name.

The male's Camille is pronounced like "KAMEAL" while the female's name is pronounced KAMEEYYE".In French, most of the time, two following "LL" sounds like "YY" like in "buYY" or decoYY.

It doesn't mean that the name's origin fits the nationality ,of course.My wife's name is Linda and she is not Spanish. Smile

10-01-04, 11:39 PM
MommyTimesTwo
I have seen it written in a number of handwritings and it most definitely was spelled both ways.

However, I did notice that it wasn't spelled Camilla until after she had been married to an Italian (my great-great-grandfather...she was married multiple times). I just thought to do a baby name search and it turns out that Camilla is Italian for Camille (same meaning). So I bet that's why she did that!

I named my daughter after her, Camille, and we pronounce it Kah-meal, like you'd expect Americans to say lol

I am not understanding the French female pronunciation of the name, with two ys. Is that like LL in Spanish?

Thank you for your help!

10-01-04, 11:58 PM
FredPuli
Further,if your ancestor had Italian parents or ancestry then Camilla could have been her name. Until recently there was a list of approved names for French children and no child could be baptised or recorded in a name outside those listed. Now not only does French 'googling' give no Camilla in lists of French names but entering Camilla fille (Camilla daughter/girl) does not produce results of families with daughters of that name , just Camille. It does show that the composer Antonio Vivaldi's ( The Four Seasons) mother was called Camilla, though ( I'm sure you wanted me to share that ! Big Grin) hence the thought about Italians. A French clerk, not having Camilla on the list, would have written Camille instead and so the girl might have been officially CamillE but called Camilla at home (or, of course, Camilla might have been misread and entered as Camille by the clerk, listed or not)

10-01-04, 11:59 PM
mozart56
Yes it is like "Pollo' "chicken" exactly!

Now if you pronounce it the American way while living in America, no problemos Wink.If you'd move in a French country they would pronounce it differently.

My first name is Michel, all Americans prefer to call me Michael or Mike ,Spanish friends call me Miguel!

10-02-04, 12:29 AM
MommyTimesTwo
Fred

I think her parents were French, but I don't know. All I know about them is that they were circus performers (acrobats) which lends to the idea that they may have been Italian (unless that is a myth that acrobats were Italian, I don't know). Her birth certificate, which I just so happen to have a copy of here on my desk, says "Camille Berthe Surentine", and I haven't the foggiest what nationalities those names are! It's in French though and she was born in Ville de Paris in 1878. Surentine doesn't sound particularly French or Italian to my tin-American ear Wink Rereading it, the last name there might be misspelled, the handwriting is horrible. The mother's maiden name was Marie Antoinette Vasselle, which is pretty clearly French to me.

Mozart

Now, if I were confronted with "Michel" and had no clues as to pronunciation, I would probably say "Michelle". Or Mick-el, rhyming with nickel.

I'm still trying to say Camille with the yy in it, it's coming out almost like "come-ere-ya" with my New York accent Razz

10-02-04, 12:49 AM
mozart56
Mommy , my name is one of those who are pronounced the same way 'Male-Female'

Daniel-Danielle, Gene-Jean, Bobby-Bobbie, Tony -Tonnie, Nicky-Nickkie.etc.....

10-02-04, 01:30 AM
MommyTimesTwo
So I would be right on saying Michelle! Cool! I figured something out Wink

My little sister is Nicole, aka Nick__, I can never remember how to spell it for girls vrs boys nor what is the "ending of the week" for her.

My other sister and I, our mother made up our first names so there is no variation or alternate way of spelling them. Though we both got decent short forms, thank goodness, as our names are also quite long.

10-02-04, 06:10 AM
FredPuli
Camille Berthe Surentine sounds pretty French to me ! The given names are not fashionable any more but they are French enough. English speakers prefer -A endings for females, perhaps because of Latin being once used so much. The -A ending normally denotes the feminine in Latin ( and -us is usually masculine and -um neuter )

Berthe is our Bertha (and about as untrendy/uncool Big Grin) Bertha was the name of Frau Krupp; Herr Krupp's factories supplied the guns to the German army in WW1. Their largest howitzer, used to bombard Paris, was, indeed, nicknamed 'Big Bertha' by the allies in an unflattering reference to Frau Krupp's own doughty proportions . With bad associations like that it is easy to see how the French version of her name became an unpopular choice.

10-02-04, 10:59 AM
MommyTimesTwo
Interestingly enough, there are a number of Berthas in my family, from all different backgrounds. For example, my Czech/Polish great-grandmother was Bertha, and she named her daughter that also. Then Camille's granddaughter was also Bertha.

They seem to have stuck with names from where they were from, possibly because they all lived in a Russian/French/Scandinavian area of NYC where they didn't speak English or assimilate into the culture anyway.

Have you ever read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? The woman who wrote that was about 10 years older than my grandmother (Camille's granddaughter) and lived three blocks away from them. My grandmother told me many times that it could have been the story of her life.

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