#Not sure why OP seemed to be suggesting I was being racist for making Javert's mother an immigrant

[le-loup-et-lion]

Okay so the "Ferko" one came from me lmao. For my fic A Reflection of Starlight.

It's been a really long time so it's hard for me to remember exactly *how* I came to decide on his given name / background but I think it went something like this:

> Look for Romani names with character/plot relevant symbolism.

> Like the idea of Javert having a name that is some kind of accidentally ironic ideal.

> Find a name that means "one who is free" which is exactly the kind of hopeful name a woman giving birth inside a jail might think of.

> The name "Ferko" is a diminutive form of "Ferenc" (as well as some other names I guess but we're picking Ferenc for obvious reasons). It sounds hella cute.

> Find the idea of Javert being called a diminutive name absolutely adorable and also something he would probably grow up to hate due to embarrassment, which is also adorable but in a hilarious way.

> Realize that because the name also means "French" that it's basically just a variant of "Francois" (which I think has been used jokingly as a sort of placeholder name for Javert in some fics).

> As his surname is Javert, which is fairly unique and could easily be a bastardization of "Javier", which is in turn a variant of "Xavier", this scenario essentially makes Javert's name a play on the name "Francis Xavier", who was a Saint who spent time in Paris (incidentally, about the same amount of time Javert canonically spends there himself). And actually, Francis Xavier was from Javier, Spain, so it's even closer to "Javert".

> As a saint, Francis Xavier was what we might call a bit of an asshole in that his biggest claim to fame was being an extra zealous missionary. This somewhat parallels Javert's obsession with law and authority and keeping people "in line" so to speak, in my opinion.

> It was still pretty popular to name children after saints at the time. Though it's unclear to me whether his mother would have A) realized the name similarity or B) known of the saint, "Francis Xavier" would not be a bad name at all for the time period.

> The fact that this knowledge might lead to interactions where the foreigness of Javert's name is brought up only for him to retort that it's basically just "Francis Xavier" anyway—y'know, the SAINT—the one known for converting pagans to our ⋆⭒˚.⋆. one true objectively correct religion ⋆⭒˚.⋆. —and are you really going to question the Frenchness of a dude who is LITERALLY NAMED "FRENCH" is such a perfect example of whitewashing and his character's internalized rascism.

> The ironic fact that his name means "free" and "French" when he is arguably (depending on your interpretation of his backstory) neither of those things at the time of his birth (although idk; did France have birthright citizenship at the time? I was more going on the idea of his ethnicity not being "French" but now I wonder if he was even born a French citizen).

> The name Ferko is specifically a Hungarian(?) variant (at least, that's what I read at the time) so I figured his mother must have originally been from around Hungary.

> The idea of "Javert" being a bastardization of "Javier" means that his father must have come from a Spanish-adjacent region. I make him Catalonian for reasons probably having to do with me reading the Aubrey Maturin series, if I'm being honest, but also it just seems more interesting and realistic than him being from Spain, since there is a big cultural and lingual overlap between Catalonia and France.

> There's a whole thing about France trying to suppress the speaking of Catalan/patois to keep their precious language and culture pure or whatever tf, which, again. the parallels of Javert mindlessly serving a system that seeks to oppress people like him; his internalized rascism; etc.

> In this scenario (which isn't impossible according to canon, since Hugo was so vague), Javert's parents both being (likely impoverished) immigrants who probably came to France looking for a better life only to be crushed by the country's legal and penal system lends a certain horrible je ne sais quoi to his backstory given his life choices.

> I'm evil and like doing evil things so this suits my machinations perfectly.

> Also it gives more cultural diversity and depth to his background, which is neat.

> But mostly it's because I'm evil :)

In our already too long Valvert-fanfics adventure, @philanthrophic-misanthrope and I noticed a trend – some authors give Javert a first name. Surprisingly, we found that authors prefer a limited number of first names. We collected them and propose you choose the one you like. And no, we are not as merciful as to provide an option for 'he doesn’t have a first name; he is just Javert.' Choose one or propose your own version.