🇫🇷 Baby Naming Rules in France
France abolished its approved list in 1993. Parents now choose freely, and the only check comes afterwards: a registrar who thinks a name is against the child's interest refers it to the public prosecutor, who can take it to a family judge.
- Legal basis
- Article 57, Code civil
- Authority
- Officier de l'état civil, then the procureur de la République
- Deadline
- The birth declaration is made shortly after birth at the town hall
- How many names
- No statutory limit
- Sex of the name
- Not required
- Approved list
- Abolished in 1993
Free choice, checked afterwards
Article 57 of the Code civil states that the first names of the child are chosen by the parents. Until 1993 the choice was confined to an approved repertoire, largely saints' names and figures from ancient history. That constraint is gone, and its removal is still visible in French naming statistics, which diversified sharply from the mid-1990s onwards.
What replaced the list is a review that happens after the fact. If a name, alone or in combination with the other names or the surname, appears to the registrar to be contrary to the interest of the child, or to infringe the right of a third party to protect their family name, the registrar immediately informs the public prosecutor.
What the prosecutor and the judge can do
The prosecutor may refer the matter to the juge aux affaires familiales. If the judge agrees that the name is contrary to the child's interest or infringes a third party's right to their family name, the judge orders its removal from the civil register.
The parents get the first opportunity to choose again. If they do not make a choice that meets those interests, the judge assigns a first name themselves.
Where no name is given at all, or the parents are unknown, the registrar chooses three first names, and the third serves as the child's surname.
Where the freedom came from
The French rule was one of the oldest naming restrictions in Europe. Under the law of 11 Germinal Year XI, dating from the revolutionary calendar, parents could choose only from names found in the various calendars or borne by figures known from French history. In practice that meant saints' names and antiquity.
Law 93-22 of 8 January 1993 repealed it. The same statute reshaped the civil status provisions of the Code civil, created the juge aux affaires familiales, and put in place the referral procedure that replaced the list.
That is why French naming statistics broaden noticeably from the mid-1990s. The change was not a shift in taste alone; the set of legally available names had just stopped being finite.
Sources
Every statement on this page is taken from an official or judicial source. The links below go to the originals so you can check them yourself.
Last reviewed: August 2026. This page explains the rules in general terms and is not legal advice. Where a decision matters to you, ask the authority that will register the name.