#but i'm not a 19th-century frenchman lmao

[impetuous-impulse]

As far as I'm aware, French compound names like Jean-Baptiste and Jean-de-Dieu compose one name, so you wouldn't refer to people with one half of their name like you wouldn't call San Francisco just "San". And then there are people with multiple first names, like Géraud Christophe Michel Duroc, which usually happens with people of aristocratic descent, and where they are generally known by one of their first names. There are some interesting threads answered by Real Francophones about the practice in the modern day. Interesting workarounds to the mouthful these compound names are include shortening them to first syllables or initials (so Jean-Baptiste would be Jean-Bap or JB maybe?).

Historically, this is a very strange business because hypens are so inconsistent, and sometimes people get called nicknames. I've seen Soult's son, who has the first names Napoléon and Hector, called "Napoléon-Hector" and "Napoléon Hector". In practice, he was called Hector during the Restoration to avoid being censured in letters and suspected for Bonapartist tendencies but his sister, Joséphine Louise Hortense (called Hortense), referred to him as "Nana" when they were teenagers. Ney's eldest son, Napoléon(-)Joseph, referred to himself as Napoléon but was consistently called "Léon" by his siblings and family. Ney's second eldest, Michel Louis Félix, was consistently called "Aloys". Keep in mind they were all children then and perhaps the names were only used among family, not spouses or lovers, and probably not in public, when they grew up.

In the 18th to 19th century, I doubt many men went by their first names unless they were monarchs or still children. I don't read nearly enough correspondence to say for sure, but I've never seen a general or marshal being referred to by their first names in their correspondence with each other. More often than not, it's their titles or their last names. With lovers and spouses, I think YMMV and it is dependent on the Frenchman. Women were mostly called by their first names unless they were being referred to as "madame", in which case they took on their husband's last name.

Question for 18th/19th century Frenchmen fandom - I’m approaching this from Napoleonic fandom but this broadly applies

So some of these lads have hyphens in their names - lots of Jean-Baptistes around, Jean-de-Dieu, really there’s a whole lotta Jeans around, real denim store hours here

It’s my assumption that 1. Close friends, lovers and marital* partners would use a first name and 2. Those double barrelled Jeans would go by “Jean” in such situations

Are those assumptions correct or would they go by the full name? Or is it dependent on the specific Frenchman?

Re ally I don’t really know the protocol around double barrelled first names and whether those are middle names or not, I don’t really know the protocol around middle names in general

* I typoed this as martial, which when writing about soldiers, lol