# French family names with (seemingly?) changed gender



## merquiades

*Moderator note: Split from here.*

Another anecdote of strange unexpected gender shift.  I recently met someone whose last name was _Dupaix_.  I was taken aback because _Paix_ is feminine in French.  His explanation was that it could be masculine in older forms of French, hence his name.  I accept it quite begrudgingly though since _Pax_ was also feminine in Latin.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Didn't know about this one, but many nouns have changed their gender and then changed their gender back to the original one.


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## merquiades

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Didn't know about this one, but many nouns have changed their gender and then changed their gender back to the original one.



I guess so, but I'm wondering if there is an alternative explanation like maybe it was a profession last name that came to be shortened _du (juge de) paix_.  Then again are there many feminine nouns ending in -x?


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## Angelo di fuoco

There are very few feminine nouns ending in -x: croix, voix, paix are the only ones that come to my mind right now.


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## berndf

With family names you never know. _Dupaix _may well be a corrupt spelling of _Dupays_ (see e.g. here).


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## CapnPrep

merquiades said:


> I accept it quite begrudgingly though since _Pax_ was also feminine in Latin.


If something is true for Latin and for modern French, it doesn't necessarily follow that it remained constant throughout all the intervening period. (I'm sure you know that.) But in this case I don't think that _paix_ or _pais_ was used as a masculine noun to any significant degree in any older stages of French. I would guess that the name _Dupaix_ actually derives from _du pays_ in many cases, as berndf said. Otherwise there may be various reasons for the masculine definite article to be used with feminine nouns in French, but it would be hard to know if that could be the case here.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> With family names you never know. _Dupaix _may well be a currupt spelling of _Dupays_ (see e.g. here).



That is a logical explanation, but in that case _paix/pays_ would have to rhyme, at least for the people who started making the spelling mistake.



			
				Angelo di fuoco said:
			
		

> There are very few feminine nouns ending in -x: croix, voix, paix are the only ones that come to my mind right now


Yes, of course!  I just did a quick search and _Ducroix_, in theory, also exists.


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## CapnPrep

merquiades said:


> That is a logical explanation, but in that case _paix/pays_ would have to rhyme, at least for the people who started making the spelling mistake.


Depending on the time period, "spelling mistake" may be an inappropriate characterization. Let's say the pronunciations of the two words were /pai̯s/ ("peace") and /paˈis/ ("country") at the relevant time. _Pais_, _pays_, and _paix_ could all be considered to be acceptable representations of either one.


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## francisgranada

Perhaps not the same case, but for example there are family names both _Delerue _and _Delarue._


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## Angelo di fuoco

An example _ad contrarium_ is Shia LaBeouf's surname.


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## merquiades

CapnPrep said:


> Depending on the time period, "spelling mistake" may be an inappropriate characterization. Let's say the pronunciations of the two words were /pai̯s/ ("peace") and /paˈis/ ("country") at the relevant time. _Pais_, _pays_, and _paix_ could all be considered to be acceptable representations of either one.



All right.  I see what you mean.   t would reveal a very early origin for _Dupaix_ then.  The process of  Vulgar Latin accentuated /a/ dipthongizing to /ai/ and then simplifying to /ɛ/ happened before the XIV century.  So mistaking _Du pays_ with _Du paix_ would have had to occur even before that time.


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## CapnPrep

That's assuming that the family name followed the same phonetic evolution as ordinary vocabulary (which proper names often don't), and that no one along the way simply decided one day "I'd rather spell and/or pronounce my name a different way" (which people sometimes do, or someone else decides for them). There any number of ways someone could end up being named _Dupaix_ today. Who knows what the history actually was behind the name of the fellow you met? (Including him, apparently…)


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## Outsider

merquiades said:


> That is a logical explanation, but in that case _paix/pays_ would have to rhyme, at least for the people who started making the spelling mistake.


Not a spelling mistake, but an alternative (and archaic) spelling. The words "paix" and "pays" don't need to have ever rimed with each other in spoken pronunciation, but there might well have been a time when < paix > would have been an acceptable _spelling_ for the word pronounced "pays".

Just look at Spanish and Portuguese, where the cognate word, pronounced very similar to French "pays" (except the "s" isn't silent), is spelled < país >... and remember that in French spelling the letter "x" often stands for one of the sounds [s] or [z], or is just silent.


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## Barsac

The name Dupaix is a variation of the name Dupais. L' homme du pais (The man of the pasture). In old occitan or provençal this word meant paturage, or pacage. It could have been assigned to a man who was responsible for the common pasture of a village.The x in the end of this name is just a writing mistake. Le paturage, le pacage, are masculine words.


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## CapnPrep

Barsac said:


> Le paturage, le pacage, are masculine words.


They are masculine because of the suffix _-age_. Just like _pâture_ is feminine because of the suffix _-ure_. It doesn't follow that _pais_/_paix_ has to be masculine; the words of this etymological family (if indeed they are all members of one family) can be of either gender.

_Pais_/_paix_could trace back to Lat. _pastum_ in some cases, why not? _Dupais_ does not look like an Occitan/Provençal name to me because of the _du_ instead of _del_, but again, why not? This name does not have a single origin, and whatever your favorite story is will probably turn out to be true for someone somewhere.


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## TitTornade

Hi
According to this website "Dupaix" is name which have mainly be used in Belgium (province de Namur) : http://www.geneanet.org/nom-de-famille/DUPAIX

I have made genealogic researches on my family and I found a lot of variations in names endings. DUPAIX could have been written : Dupet, Dupé, Dupais, Dupay, Dupois... with no connection with "paix" !


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## merquiades

TitTornade said:


> Hi
> According to this website "Dupaix" is name which have mainly be used in Belgium (province de Namur) : http://www.geneanet.org/nom-de-famille/DUPAIX
> 
> I have made genealogic researches on my family and I found a lot of variations in names endings. DUPAIX could have been written : Dupet, Dupé, Dupais, Dupay, Dupois... with no connection with "paix" !



Interesting you found it in Belgium, the person I met was also from Lorraine. It seems clear now that the name has nothing to do with the noun "paix".


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## sotos

Family names/surnames that changed from male to female and back to male are relatively common in some places in Greece. e.g. Giorgenas (the son or husband of Giorgena, where "Giorgena" means "the wife of George"). The suffix -ena (-αινα) is commonly affixed to men's names to create women's nicknames. From these female nicknames new men's names are created, to resolve problems of synonymy in small communities.


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