There has never been any law about this since civil registry appeared in France with Napoleon. However, there is a very widespread trend of having three names officially registered, even if only the first one is commonly used. It comes from the catholic tradition. When a child was baptized, he typically received the names of his godfather and godmother (French : parrain & marraine). This three name trend applied to most people born before 1970 but is still continued in many families.
For example, a girl would be called Anne, Madeleine (after her godmother), Jacqueline (after her godfather if his name was Jacques). Feminized versions of male names were most often available, like Pauline, Charlotte, Michèle or Yvette, much more than the reverse. If the godmother’s name for a boy however was Suzanne, which could not be given a male form, then another name would be chosen, usually a grandfather’s or uncle’s. And of course the same rule could apply for girl if the godfather was for instance Roger, which has no feminine form. In fact, that system was always quite flexible and up to the parent’s choices.
The rapid evolution of baby name trends had the result of French people having typically outdated names in second or third position, because they went back to the generation above or higher. As less and less children were actually baptized after WW2, parents would just give names they liked, regardless of forebears. There has never been requirements for having several names, you can have up to five but also just a single one. If the family was of foreign extraction, it was long required to have a first French name for common use, which could be followed by Gianni, Enrique, Kim Ly or Stanislawa.
Now, maybe you were thinking about compound names, which are a completely different story. And if you are from an English speaking country, you probably find them exotic. There was a whole trend throughout the 20th century of having two names joined by a hyphen, which in this case count as one. The first name would typically be Jean for men and Marie for women. Thus appeared plenty of Jean-Pierre, Jean-Jacques, Jean-Claude, Marie-Louise, Marie-Claire, Marie-Laure etc. To which two other names could be added as usual, which means you can be Jean-Luc Dominique Jean-Claude…
These double names have become a French stereotype, although this trend is now becoming outdated. They can also exist combined with another name in the first place, like Pierre-Yves or Anne-Sophie. This trend that is not uniquely French : you have Hans Jürgen in Germany, Luis Miguel in Spain, Eva Britt in Sweden. In Italy, they will be contracted in Giancarlo or Gianluca, also counting as one single name. In English, the pattern also exists, albeit less common : Mary Ann, John Lee…
A variant that gets some laughs abroad is Jean-Marie, literally John Mary. It seems it is used as a name for pets in English speaking countries… Again, it is not exclusively French, but rather Catholic inspired as you have Gian Maria in Italy, Jose Maria in Spain, Klaus Maria in Germany. There are in fact a number of odd combinations in France, like Marie-Pierre (lit. Mary Peter…) or Marie-Ange (Mary Angel) which are not uncommon. Jean-Loup is literally John Wolf, yet Loup is very rare as a single name.
Every country has specific name rules or patterns that sound exotic abroad. You can think of the Russian patronymic names in official use, like Sergey Ivanovitch Popov, or Katia Petrovna Mukhina. They invariably derive from the father’s name. In Hungary, a married woman will have -ne added to her husband’s name, giving Nagy Viktorne, since surname is given first.
The English form of initial following name (i.e :Samuel R. Brown) does not exist in France, although it has been exceptionally used for pen names by some artists.
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