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EPONINE

Can you appreciate Eponine(eh-poh-NEEN)?
In Les Miserables the name is also said eh-poh-NEE
I'm think this is a "pet" variation like Jean become Jeanie. Would that be right?
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I love Les Misérables (I've seen it in London, but I haven't seen the movie) and I like the name Eponine and Fantine, although I wouldn't bestow them on real people. The characters have such sad fates!
Cosette, on the other hand...although I like the character, I don't care for the name (which btw wasn't her real name, as people have already mentioned). A friend said that it doesn't work in Sweden because it sounds like korsett (corset) or klosett (toilet chair) and that's all I can think of now!
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I do love Les Mis names; probably because I've been a big Les Mis for awhile. I love most of them in a romanticized, name-nerdy sort of way. For that reason, I'd only consider them usable as middle names or for a pet (I really want to get a male cat and name him Gavroche). There are some that are common (Jean, of course), but only a few I'd actually use (I adore Marius).Most of the female names in Les Mis have some sort of story behind them, mentioned by Victor Hugo in the book itself. Fantine was an orphan who grew up without a formal name. Everyone called her "Fantine", a spinoff of the word for "infant", because she was so angelic and sweet. Cosette, which means "little thing", is a pet name. The character's actual name in Euphrasie. Eponine (and her sister Azelma) were named for characters their mother read about in romance novels or romanticized versions of myths. I've read that Eponine is a form of Epona from Gallo-Roman religion/mythology.I like it, in a similar way to the names that I love from Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I think they're beautiful examples of the ways that names are created, used, and morphed in literature and I couldn't imagine those characters with different names. Naming characters is such an art.
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Confession time: I really don't like 'Les Miserables' names at all. Not one tiny bit. I can't even appreciate them that much in a name-nerdy sense. I just think they sound ridiculous.
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Yeah same. Why is that?
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Maybe because nobody we know outside of that book or play has those names?
Or maybe it's because Eponine sounds like hair mousse and Cosette sounds like a poodle and Fantine like baby formula in France?
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Except in France people do have these names.These stats are from a French government source.Since 1900 Eponine has been used 220 times as a name, Fantine 884 times, and Cosette(which is not really the character's first name) was used 1534 times.
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Over the course of more than a hundred years, that's still extremely rare. What do you suppose makes these authentic French names so rare in their native country?
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I'm not sure. Got any theories?
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