In all honesty, it's kind of hard to butterfly the name Louis from the history of Kings of France. If you look back at the list of Carolingian Kings, they basically alternated between Louis and Charles for their names: only four Kings didn't bear either of these two names (Pepin the Short, Carloman I, Carloman II and Lothair). And if you look at the family tree, Charles and Louis are very common names in that family. Surviving Merovingians or another family taking the Carolingian's could do the trick. But even then, we have the case of the four Clovis that came before and it seems Louis was quite a popular name among the Franks even back then.
By the way, Louis wasn't necessarilly meant to be as common as it became among French Kings. The Robertian and early Capetian (both being the same family) were more fond of the names Robert, Hugues and Henry. You had to wait for Philippe I to show up (a name that was added because Henry I wedded a Russian princess claiming descent from Philip II of Macedon BTW) before Louis and Philippe alternated among the names of Kings and heirs to the throne of France. Only John I and Charles IV were exceptions and that's because we were in the middle of
Les Rois Maudits.
The Valois did name family members Louis but the name wasn't as popular with them as it had been before: which is why only two Kings from the House of Valois were named Louis (the eleventh and the twelfth).
The Bourbons were the ones that were the less original of the lot. Every firstborn son from Henri IV to Charles X (who was a third son) was named Louis. Blame the Sun King for that I guess.
Dathi THorfinnsson said:
I WAS going to claim Clovis is an entirely different name - but apparently it isn't. Hunh.
Well, technically they are different names that share a common ancestry. Both come from the Ancient German Chlodovech, which was then latinized either as Clodovicus (which was shortened into Clovis later on) or Ludovicus (which in turn gave us Louis as well as another name that is distinct, Ludovic). The same thing could be argued with the equivalent of Louis in other languages such as the German Ludwig or the English Lewis.
Neirdak said:
I think you need to kill, dishonor or to butterfly Clovis 1. Sadly, Childeric I only had a son and two daughters. So killing Clovis would perhaps butterfly France itself.
Not necessarilly: you still have the Franks around and it's possible another King than Clovis could appear to unite them and create a Frankish realm that would eventually become France. That said, it could be a very different France from OTL.
Besides, it was technically the "Kindgom of the Franks"/"Kingdom of Western Francia" rather than the "Kingdom of France": you had to wait Philippe Augustus (1180-1223) to switch his title from
Rex Francorum to
Rex Franciae.
Bee said:
Back up a few more decades. Have Charlemagne die young and Carloman live a full lifespan instead of the other way round as in OTL. Thereafter, the name Louis never becomes one of the pool of royal names.
Whose to say Carloman couldn't name one of his sons Louis? As was noted before, it was a pretty popular name among the Franks.
The Professor said:
Kill off Phillippe II early enough and we might get a few more Henrys, Thibaults, or Roberts
Well, you still had seven Louis before Philippe II so that doesn't fit the OP.
