Ou

Since I was talking about a Swiss family yesterday, it seems as if we should continue our continental talk by retreating once again back to France. You see, I was scrolling through the 2010 French data on BehindTheName, when I noticed that an awful lot of names contained the letters o and u side-by-side – especially a lot of lou names (Woo!).

Here’s a complete list of the names in alphabetical order, with the majority of meanings courtesy of MeilleurPrénoms:

BOYS:

Abdoulaye (#439) – servant of God, Arabic. Abdoulaye Méïté plays for Dijon FC and Abdoulaye Wade is the former President of Senegal.

Amadou (#468) – possibly a variant of Amadeus, which means love of God in Latin. Could also be taken from the French word amadou, which means tinder or derive from Arabic and mean praiseworthy

Ayoub (#95) – repentance, Arabic

Édouard (#209) – French form of Edward, which means guardian of wealth

Elouan (#170) – possibly derives from Celtic and means light

Lou (#451) – short for Lou- names

Louca (#307) – variation of Luke, which means from Lucania

Loucas (#325) – see Louca

Louis (#5) – derives from Ludwig and means famous warrior

Louison (#321) – could mean son of Louis or simply be a petform of the name Louis/Louise

Louka (#85) – see Louca

Loukas (#449) – see Louca

Mahamadou (#459) – praiseworthy, Arabic

Mamadou (#316) – newly weaned, Arabic

Marouane (#340) – rock, quartz, Arabic

Moussa (#251) – saved from the waters, Arabic

Ousmane (#475) – young serpent/snake, Arabic

Souleymane (#370) – healthy, intact, safe, Arabic

Titouan (#59) – variant of Antoine, which means flower, Greek or invaluable, Latin

Youcef (#335) – God will save, Hebrew

Younes (#105) – close to God, Hebrew

Youssef (#145) – see Youcef

GIRLS

Anouk (#154) – grace, Hebrew

Dounia (#237) – wealth, Arabic

Fatoumata (#214) – small camel that has just been weaned, Arabic

Leelou (#381) – variant of Lilou

Lilou (#12) – derived from the character in Luc Besson’s film The Fifth Element

Lou (#25) – short form of Lou- names

Lou-Ann (#156) – combination of the name Lou and the name Ann

Lou-Anne (#167) – variant of Lou-Ann

Louane (#29) – variant of Lou-Ann

Louann (#327) – variant of Lou-Ann

Louanne (#200) – variant of Lou-Ann

Louisa (#195) – famed warrior, Germanic

Louise (#10) – variant of Louisa

Louison (#274) – see Louison above

Louna (#19) – variant of Luna, which means moon

Lylou (#105) – see Lilou

Maimouna (#403) – happy, Arabic

Marilou (#284) – smoosh of Marie and Lou

Marylou (#291) – see Marilou

Nour (#117) – variant of Noor, which means light in Arabic

Soukaina (#486) – wellness, Arabic

Soumaya (#331) – perfect, high, Arabic

Youna (#453) – if, Celtic

Yousra (#256) – who has good character, Arabic