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Many French kings were named Louis, and their combined reigns stretch over hundreds of years of French history.

Louis I^st, born in 778, was the third son of Charlemagne, and became his successor after the death of his two older brothers. His grandson was Louis II, whose son in turn was Louis III, but it was his brother Charles who became the father of Louis IV and great-grandfather of Louis V.

Are you lost yet? Me too.

Louis VI at Saint Denis Basilica (bottom left)

Let’s leave the Carolingian dynasty for the Capetians. After Louis V who died in 987, it took a change of dynasty to get to Louis VI, born in 1084. His son was Louis VII, his great-grandson Louis VIII and with the following generation we finally get to someone interesting: Louis IX, better known as Saint-Louis. We’re in the 13^th century now, and Louis is king for over forty years. His reign is seen as the golden age for the kingdom of France which reached economic and political summits during this era. He had a reputation of being very pious and a high moral integrity.
He was canonized in 1297, twenty-seven years after his death, and remains the only French king to receive that distinction from the Catholic church.

Following his death, it took three generations to get to Louis X, the last Louis of the Capetian dynasty. And even after entering the Valois dynasty, it was some time before Louis XI became king in 1423. (He was the son and successor of Charles VII who was crowned with the help of Joan of Arc, with whom you might be more familiar than any of these kings.)

Onward, to cousin Louis XII, who died without giving the kingdom a successor, so the crown went to yet another cousin, François d’Angoulême (the first king named François). Contrary to Louis XII, he had a number of children, yet none of them was named Louis. (His daughter Louise died aged 3 but she couldn’t have become queen anyway.)

Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne at Saint Denis Basilica

Enter the Bourbon dynasty and the reigns of the most famous kings named Louis:

Louis XIII with his prime ministers Cardinal Richelieu and Mazarin, arch-enemies of the Three Musketeers

Louis XIV, the Sun King, who built the glorious palace of Versailles to escape the dangerous streets of Paris

Louis XV who lent his name to the architectural style Louis Quinze and reconciled France and Austria, sealing the alliance with the marriage between his grandson Louis and Marie-Antoinette.
Can you see it coming? That grandson is none other than Louis XVI who lost his head during the French Revolution.
Which makes his brother, Louis XVIII, who returned to the throne after the first fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1814, the last king of France by that name (and one of the last kings of France full stop).

You’ll wonder what happened to Louis XVII and what possessed the parents to name two of their sons Louis, especially as they were born only one year apart?
I can only answer the first question: Louis XVII, or Louis Charles, was the second son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. He was considered Dauphin after the death of his older brother but died aged ten during the French Revolution, 19 years before his uncle claimed back the throne.

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Chances are, unless you’re writing historical fiction (and maybe even then), you’ll need to name lots of characters. Let me share some tips:

If you are writing real-world fiction, consider what realistic names are/were in your chosen time and place. Even if you give your protagonist a “special” name, unless it’s a main feature of your story, most named characters shouldn’t have “special” names. For research, try “baby names popular in year X” (with X being the year of your story minus the age of the character you’re naming, obviously).

For foreign settings, try to find someone from that country/area to confirm your choices (I assure you there are not as many Pierre Dupont in France as you might think, or Hans Meier in Germany). That is especially true with names from cultures where naming rules are different from what you are used to (Chinese names are a prime example).

For stories set in certain time periods or communities, learn about naming customs. Ancient Rome had rather straightforward naming rules that can easily be reproduced and applied to fictional characters. Closer to home, in my grandma’s region of Eastern Frisia, children would receive the same names over and over again from generation to generation, and if in those big families a child died, the next one born would get that child’s name. (Much to genealogists’ despair, I’m sure.)

In a fantasy or sci-fi world, it is you who make the rules, and this includes naming. However, even there it is a good idea to remember to keep your names pronounceable. When I was reading the Never-Ending Story for the first time as a kid (when it was first released and before any movie adaptation), I struggled with the pronunciation of all the names of people and places, it annoyed me to no end. As editor Heather Alexander said at a writers’ conference I attended a few years ago, “you want your readers to be able to talk about your book”!

Don’t use too similar names for different characters (unless it serves a plot purpose). You don’t want your reader to mix them up and get confused.

In real life, people do have unusual names. And there isn’t always a (big) story behind it. But when characters in your story have unusual names (whether the protagonist, the antagonist or a secondary character), readers assume there is a reason (and it better be a good one), that you did it on purpose. Unusual names stand out, so if you give a character an unusual name, you better know why.

Once you’ve come up with a name, check the Internet. You don’t want your protagonist to unintentionally share the name of a criminal, a person well known in another English-speaking country, or an important character from someone else’s books. (Don’t use names that are too similar to well-known characters either.)

Oh, one last tip: Don’t name your protagonist after your kid – or your kid after your protagonist!

Mayken Brünings

Writing Middle Grade fiction in Paris

Category Archives: Uncategorized

L is for Louis

Some quick thoughts on names