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The origin of the name France is a particular use of the place name France, from the Medieval Latin Francia, "land of the Franks"; the usual feminine of francus, "Frank", was franca, conserved as first name in Italian (Franca).

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Initially, France probably was a surname applied to someone from the oïl area when he was settled abroad (this is the origin of France as family name); this is the case of Marie de France, living in England after 1150: "Marie ai nom, si sui de France" ("My name is Marie and I'm from France"). But the apparition of France as first name is belated, because in Middle Ages the feminine form was Franque.

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France was used in the 19th c. as regressive derivate from Françoise or even from François (the masculine form), because Noël-François Thibault wrote his name as Noël-France Thibault, a habit inherited by his son, the writer Anatole-François Thibault, best known by his pen name (Anatole France).

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Even coming directly from francus, franca, France is used as variant form of Françoise, especially in WWI and especially in WWII by logical historical raisons (the parents who used France for their daugther were using it as patriotic variant of Françoise and not only as country name).

I don't know what the average person in France would think of this today, but in 1939 at least one French woman named her daughter France, as that was the original birth name of the actress France Nuyen, who was born in Marseilles to a French mother and Vietnamese father:

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http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0638395/bio

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P.S. The comments section for the name France on this site say that France is quite common in France as part of the compound name "Marie-France". That was certainly true in the recent past, because if you Google "Marie-France" a great many examples of women with that name come up.

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This message was edited 7/3/2009, 5:51 AM