dmu

Have you ever been telephoned by a deep-voiced Dominique (or Camille or Claude or Yannick.....) and called the person Monsieur with all the masculine endings, only to discover that it's a female? Or the contrary, with a soft voice which sounds feminine, but turns out to be a male?
I detest these ambiguous French Christian names! Leslie/Lesley is bad enough in English but at least they're written differently. (And in fact I've come across French female Leslies which might cause problems if they stay in Anglo-Saxon countries....).
A useless subject, but can't do better, with the present heat-wave melting the brain....

Novocastrian

A few years ago, before I quit smoking, I had run out of ciggies at the end of an evening which involved consumption of an unusual amount of C2H5OH. First thing next morning, I walked the short distance to the nearest bar/tabac, run by a deep voiced, rather ugly, Madame.

Still a bit tipsy I suppose, I said "bonjour monsieur" to the lady. "Je suis un monsieur maintenant?" she said.

"Ah, pardon, je dors toujours" said I.

Then I quit smoking.

dmu

that's even worse on the diplomatic front, as you could actually see her!!

Tweedpipe

There's one French mail tv reporter by the first name of Jocelyn. Every time I see his name appear I can't help thinking that if he'd gone to the same UK school as I did, within months the poor devil would probably have hung himself behind the bicycle sheds. Parents unknowingly can be so cruel!
Mme TP swears that her hairdresser's name was Barbara Seville, but she never did tell me if she sang opera to her customers whilst wielding the comb and scissors.
And you probably heard about the extremely seductive lady named Anna Conda. Every man who approached her and were taken into her arms, were crushed to death.

I'm awaiting with interest to hear EuroTrash address this thread. For some strange reason for at least a year I imagined she was a he! Interesting what a furum name can conjure up in one's imagination. As for myself, I can't say I'm a particular lover of tweed, and the last time I smoked would have been at fourteen or fifteen, behind the aforementioned bicycle sheds.....

spouse of scouse

Que c'est embarrassant!

I was good mates with a Kiwi bloke at work in Oz. His name was Kerry, he got heaps for it at school.

dmu

I knew a girl in England, called Noël (not even Noëlle). This caused problems during an outing involving an overnight stay, when she found herself in a boys' dormitory....
We were very careful not to call our first-born Laurence, as the UK family's first reaction would have been "but she's a girl, not a boy" and she might have suffered the same fate as Noël during school trips to the UK....
I know a Jean-Marie and a Marie-Pierre, and presume that the respective parents were staunch Catholics. And I once worked for a Jean Aymard, poor fellow. He must have suffered at school....

scrubbedexpat142

Then of course there is Hilary, Peta, Robin, Alex, Frances...

My Boss was caught out by the name Fabrice.

spouse of scouse

You really have to wonder what some parents are thinking when they name their kids. Like the bloke in the Johnny Cash song whose father named him Sue

Haven't heard anything beat Heavenly Hirani Tiger Lily

dmu

.... and what about Patrice, Vivian, Lilian.... You have to think global when you choose your babies' names nowadays, they might not stay in France forever more!

Tweedpipe

I had to read that out 2-3 times before the penny (centime?) dropped. You bet he suffered at school. Parents need whipping.

grannybunz

They might not even stay the same sex for ever! however if so they tend to change name. We have 2 trans friends. The older of the 2 had huge problems in the UK but in her village in France everyone was very accepting. Funny old world really.