What Would The French Have Named Cities/Things in North America?

[Kellan Sullivan]

Continuing an old thread out of interest. Let's say that Choiseul's plan to establish settler colonies in French Louisiana had been adopted earlier. And that the first port of call for the settlers would've been Haute Louisiane instead of the Îles du Salut. Ergo, the idea doesn't flop as badly as it did OTL.

The Duc de Choiseul in 1763 did organise France's largest attempt at colonisation in the Americas to date with the settlement of 12,000 settlers in Kourou, French Guiana. He had envisioned the formation of a settler colony to rival those of the other European powers in America and planned on recruiting and additional 14,000 Alsatians, Rhinelanders and Venetians. He cited the British colonies as his inspiration as they had become a large consumer market for British goods. The lack of preparedness (this was done hastily) coupled with the malarial swamps made it so that the majority of these settlers perished, with only around 1,000 survivors taking refuge in the îles du Salut (Isles of Health) where the strong breezes kept mosquitoes at bay. He also was in favour of taking in Acadian refugees to resettle them in France, with some 4,000 taking refuge in the mother country.

Perhaps if France simply keeps Louisiana and Choiseul decides that France pursue a policy of settler colonialism, they can direct the first batch of 12,000 settlers in 1763 along with the Acadians to Louisiana. Establishing settlements all along the West Bank of the Mississippi River to ward off British encroachment, though at this time there were still few British settlers in the region. If they can continue to recruit French settlers, particularly as the country was plagued by bad harvests in 1769-1770 and 1782-1789, it would not be difficult to have a substantial colony. If government policy is focused on this, at least during the Duc of Choiseul's tenure as minister of the crown, there is no reason that 100,000 European settlers could not be sent to the colony by 1775.

These settlers are obviously going to spread out along the West Bank, potentially all the way up to the falls of the Ohio (France had a spotty claim based on La Salle's potential sighting of the falls before he died).

If there is a larger settler presence, there will, naturellement, be new towns established. Potentially a reorganization of the colonial government into smaller chunks than simply "Haute Louisiane" and "Basse Louisiane". What would the French name these towns/regions? For instance, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee are three that I can't seem to find options for, even though Timothy Demonbreun (first citizen of Nashville) was actually "French" and born Jacques-Timothée Boucher, Sieur de Montbrun, and the salt-lick at Nashville was known to the French governors.

While we're at it, the usual argument is that France would name places after kings and queens, but there's already a Louisiana, and since their queens after Anne of Austria were all "Marie", that's kind of confusing. How would one even turn something named after Marie (either the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene or the queen of France) into a "regional" name in French anyway? Mariane? Mariette?

@unprincipled peter @Brita @Viriato @Miner @Gabingston @Sevarics @PGSBHurricane

 

[Circonflexe]

Continuing an old thread out of interest. Let's say that Choiseul's plan to establish settler colonies in French Louisiana had been adopted earlier. And that the first port of call for the settlers would've been Haute Louisiane instead of the Îles du Salut. Ergo, the idea doesn't flop as badly as it did OTL.



These settlers are obviously going to spread out along the West Bank, potentially all the way up to the falls of the Ohio (France had a spotty claim based on La Salle's potential sighting of the falls before he died).

If there is a larger settler presence, there will, naturellement, be new towns established. Potentially a reorganization of the colonial government into smaller chunks than simply "Haute Louisiane" and "Basse Louisiane". What would the French name these towns/regions? For instance, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee are three that I can't seem to find options for, even though Timothy Demonbreun (first citizen of Nashville) was actually "French" and born Jacques-Timothée Boucher, Sieur de Montbrun, and the salt-lick at Nashville was known to the French governors.

While we're at it, the usual argument is that France would name places after kings and queens, but there's already a Louisiana, and since their queens after Anne of Austria were all "Marie", that's kind of confusing. How would one even turn something named after Marie (either the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene or the queen of France) into a "regional" name in French anyway? Mariane? Mariette?

@unprincipled peter @Brita @Viriato @Miner @Gabingston @Sevarics @PGSBHurricane

Some plausible sources are:
- indigeneous names: a lot of names (e.g. Illinois, Chicoutimi, even Québec) are French transcriptions of Amerindian names.
- prominent ministers (like OTL Choiseul islands, lake Pontchartrain etc.) or royal family (île d'Orléans, nouvelle-Angoulême).
- physical features (like OTL Trois-Rivières, Bâton-Rouge etc.).
- *Bonus for Catholicism* saints. Pick litterally any random one in the calendar! People could name a place after the feast day when they land on it. (There are OTL Easter, Christmas, Trinidad, and Ascension island, but any saint is fair game: the Caribbean notably hosts Saint-Vincent, Sainte-Lucie, Saint-Christophe etc. Just avoid any anachronism, e.g. Sainte-Thérèse-de-Lisieux or Saint-Jean-Vianney before 19th century).

 

[da Racontor]

- *Bonus for Catholicism* saints. Pick litterally any random one in the calendar! People could name a place after the feast day when they land on it. (There are OTL Easter, Christmas, Trinidad, and Ascension island, but any saint is fair game: the Caribbean notably hosts Saint-Vincent, Sainte-Lucie, Saint-Christophe etc. Just avoid any anachronism, e.g. Sainte-Thérèse-de-Lisieux or Saint-Jean-Vianney before 19th century).

Another good way to get a saint name is to name the town after the local church.

 

[unprincipled peter]

Continuing an old thread out of interest. Let's say that Choiseul's plan to establish settler colonies in French Louisiana had been adopted earlier. And that the first port of call for the settlers would've been Haute Louisiane instead of the Îles du Salut. Ergo, the idea doesn't flop as badly as it did OTL.



These settlers are obviously going to spread out along the West Bank, potentially all the way up to the falls of the Ohio (France had a spotty claim based on La Salle's potential sighting of the falls before he died).

If there is a larger settler presence, there will, naturellement, be new towns established. Potentially a reorganization of the colonial government into smaller chunks than simply "Haute Louisiane" and "Basse Louisiane". What would the French name these towns/regions? For instance, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee are three that I can't seem to find options for, even though Timothy Demonbreun (first citizen of Nashville) was actually "French" and born Jacques-Timothée Boucher, Sieur de Montbrun, and the salt-lick at Nashville was known to the French governors.

While we're at it, the usual argument is that France would name places after kings and queens, but there's already a Louisiana, and since their queens after Anne of Austria were all "Marie", that's kind of confusing. How would one even turn something named after Marie (either the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene or the queen of France) into a "regional" name in French anyway? Mariane? Mariette?

@unprincipled peter @Brita @Viriato @Miner @Gabingston @Sevarics @PGSBHurricane

Is your POD the conclusion of the French and Indian/7YW, 1763? If so, scratch everything on the East bank of the Mississippi. Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, as well as Illinois,Indiana, Mississippi, Alabama , are all firmly established as British by the peace treaty. The only way that changes is if France wins the war.

With that in mind, settling the lower west bank of the Mississippi is going to be problematic, as it is mostly swampland. I would guess the push would be up the Red River of the south, eastern Texas, and north of mid Arkansas. An issue with northern Mississippi Valley is that until the age of steam, transit against the current is very difficult, not to mention the Chickasaw (northern Mississippi/lower Arkansas) are traditional French enemies and will be backed by the English to impede the French.

That said, St Louis was founded in this time. Expect the same here, with the same name. It may get more French migration from former northern New France if the west bank still flies the French flag.

Otherwise expect similar nomenclature as in the Illinois country - a mixture of French and Indigenous.

OTL, Spain and France contended the border of New Spain and New France. When Louisiana was ceded to Spain, much of the prior border was abandoned, with the main Texas settlement being San Antonio. Here, expect both countries to continue developing the boundary, primarily the Natchitoches/Nacodoches region. This may affect relations between the two countries, although in the grand scheme of things it was not that important.

 

[Brita]

Continuing an old thread out of interest. Let's say that Choiseul's plan to establish settler colonies in French Louisiana had been adopted earlier. And that the first port of call for the settlers would've been Haute Louisiane instead of the Îles du Salut. Ergo, the idea doesn't flop as badly as it did OTL.



These settlers are obviously going to spread out along the West Bank, potentially all the way up to the falls of the Ohio (France had a spotty claim based on La Salle's potential sighting of the falls before he died).

If there is a larger settler presence, there will, naturellement, be new towns established. Potentially a reorganization of the colonial government into smaller chunks than simply "Haute Louisiane" and "Basse Louisiane". What would the French name these towns/regions? For instance, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee are three that I can't seem to find options for, even though Timothy Demonbreun (first citizen of Nashville) was actually "French" and born Jacques-Timothée Boucher, Sieur de Montbrun, and the salt-lick at Nashville was known to the French governors.

While we're at it, the usual argument is that France would name places after kings and queens, but there's already a Louisiana, and since their queens after Anne of Austria were all "Marie", that's kind of confusing. How would one even turn something named after Marie (either the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene or the queen of France) into a "regional" name in French anyway? Mariane? Mariette?

@unprincipled peter @Brita @Viriato @Miner @Gabingston @Sevarics @PGSBHurricane

I can see different types of place names:
* Gallicised native names or translations of native names. The St. Croix River for instance was first called Rivière du Tombeau because a native man had been buried there.
* Names based on the royal family or an important figure (a statesman, an officer or a town's founder for instance)

If a town gets named after a French queen, they can add something to Marie, like Reine-Marie, Ville-Marie, Bourg-Marie. Or nicknames like Marion, Mariette, Marise...​

Or maybe they can use the Queen's middle name: we have Marie Josèphe, later Marie Antoinette... We could have towns named Leczinska (as it used to be written in French at the time) after Queen Maria Leszczynska. Towns could be named after French princes or princesses too, or after their title: a town founded on the Dauphin's birthday could be Ville-Dauphine or Port-Dauphin, or anything-Dauphin(e)​

* Names based on French places, mostly Nouveau/Nouvelle [place name]
* Names based on the landscape (like Bâton-Rouge)
* Names based on an event or a situation, for instance if the French win a battle somewhere and then found a town, it could be named Victoire or Triomphe (there's one actually); or a town founded in difficult times could be Espérance.

 

[Viriato]

Initially the British were willing to agree to the Maumee and Wabash River down to the Mississippi as the border between British and French territories with a "neutral territory" in the middle, so it's entirely possible that such an agreement could be reached. The French initially wanted the "neutral zone" further east along the Allegheny River.

 

[funnyhat]

I can see different types of place names:
* Gallicised native names or translations of native names. The St. Croix River for instance was first called Rivière du Tombeau because a native man had been buried there.
* Names based on the royal family or an important figure (a statesman, an officer or a town's founder for instance)

If a town gets named after a French queen, they can add something to Marie, like Reine-Marie, Ville-Marie, Bourg-Marie. Or nicknames like Marion, Mariette, Marise...​

Or maybe they can use the Queen's middle name: we have Marie Josèphe, later Marie Antoinette... We could have towns named Leczinska (as it used to be written in French at the time) after Queen Maria Leszczynska. Towns could be named after French princes or princesses too, or after their title: a town founded on the Dauphin's birthday could be Ville-Dauphine or Port-Dauphin, or anything-Dauphin(e)​

* Names based on French places, mostly Nouveau/Nouvelle [place name]
* Names based on the landscape (like Bâton-Rouge)
* Names based on an event or a situation, for instance if the French win a battle somewhere and then found a town, it could be named Victoire or Triomphe (there's one actually); or a town founded in difficult times could be Espérance.

Good list. Also:

- Bourbon, in various incarnations is also very likely (Fort Bourbon, île Bourbon, Port-Bourbon…)

-Government ministers can be honored (e.g. Lac Ponchartrain)

-Saint(e)- for the day it was on the Catholic calendar when a town was founded, and/or the popular French ones (Saint-Louis, Saint-Martin, Saint-Denis, Sainte-Geneviève). These can be used with additional features : Saint-Martin-du-Mississippi, etc. (In Québec there is actually a town called Saint-Louis-du-Ha!-Ha!).

 

[Viriato]

In New France, many of the places seemed to be named after saints or were somehow related to the church, the same seemed to be true in much of Spanish and Portuguese America as well. There were also settlements named after towns/cities in France from where settlers originated, Repentigny and Longueil are two places in Quebec that share names with their towns in Normandy. However, often names came through persons of noble lineage. Laval in Quebec is named after Francis-Xavier de Montmorency-Laval, the first bishop of Quebec, his paternal lineage being from the noble House of Laval, with its lineage originating in Laval located in the Maine (France).

Additionally there are many places named after geographical features, such as Trois-Rivières (Three Rivers), Détroit (Detroit) "strait" and it was originally the strait of Lake Erie, though there is also a "Le Détroit" located in Normandy as well. Many place names in Quebec seem to originate in what after 1790 would be the Calvados department of what had been the province of Normandy. Even Honefleur in Quebec, though only founded in 1904, was named after the eponymous city in Normandy.

 

[TheKutKu]

The “logic" of Choiseuil’s settlement plan was to build a colony of free men that could protect French’s interests in the carribeans (and therefore peripherical to it) that was also
-Supported and secured by its large settler population
-far away from British colonies so that it couldn’t be an easy prey

These were very logical criteria in the context of the refocusing of French colonial efforts on the carribean and learning from the failure of Canada.

with that in mind we know that during the late stages of the war, Choiseul considered, besides cayenne, New Orleans and Goree (in senegal, also important for northern Atlantic defence) as destination for that settlement plan. However the Handover of Louisiana and the British conquest of the Senegalese factories and Spanish Florida prevented these alternatives, and Cayenne was chosen.

To have New Orleans be selected instead , you need to have Florida stay spanish, considering The handover of western louisisana was also tied to the compensations for Spain’s colonial losses, I think that simply having Spain defend Havana and Manila, and therefore not give up Florida, would be enough to set this up.

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

What would the French name these towns/regions? For instance, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee are three that I can't seem to find options for, even though Timothy Demonbreun (first citizen of Nashville) was actually "French" and born Jacques-Timothée Boucher, Sieur de Montbrun, and the salt-lick at Nashville was known to the French governors.

People could name a place after the feast day when they land on it.

-Saint(e)- for the day it was on the Catholic calendar when a town was founded, and /or the popular French ones

In New France, many of the places seemed to be named after saints or were somehow related to the church, the same seemed to be true in much of Spanish and Portuguese America as well.

The Memphis, Tennessee area, my hometown in Shelby County, was given two names by the French in different years. The second name was
Fort De L’Assomption and was named exactly the way that Circonflexe, funnyhat and Viriato suggest the French would probably choose their names…

Fort Assumption (or Fort De L'Assomption) was a French fortification constructed in 1739 on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff on the Mississippi River in Shelby County, present day Memphis, Tennessee. …On August 15, 1739, the day of the Feast of the Assumption, the fort was finished and named Fort Assumption in commemoration of the holy day.

But the first name for the Memphis area was named, not in relation to a feast day and not after a famous Frenchman, but rather an ordinary French soldier. This naming method could also be duplicated by the French. Other towns in Tennessee were later named by American settlers after men who were not particularly famous. Nashville and Knoxville come to mind. …

Fort Prudhomme, or Prud'homme, was a simple stockade fortification, constructed in late February 1682 on one of the Chickasaw Bluffs of the Mississippi River in West Tennessee by Cavelier de La Salle's French canoe expedition of the Mississippi River Basin…..The fort was the first structure built by the French in Tennessee. La Salle named the fortification "Fort Prudhomme", after their lost man. Ten days after his disappearance, the missing member of the expedition found his way back to the camp, unharmed but starving. Prudhomme had lost his way while hunting.
[….other sources assume that "La Salle built Fort Prudhomme, possibly on the site of present-day Memphis", on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff below the mouth of the Wolf River, in what would later become Shelby County. The location on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff would put Fort Prudhomme at or near the site of the later French Fort Assumption which was used as a base against the Chickasaw in the abortive Campaign of 1739/QUOTE]

 

[Parmenion]

Most countries followed the same format: A. Cool place back home. B. Cool guy back home. C. Whatever the natives say a lot.