‘What’s in a Name?’ Understanding French Canadian ‘dit’ Surnames
After posting Part I of the ‘Tracing my French Canadian Ancestry’ saga, I realized not everyone may understand a very normal aspect of French Canadian genealogy - that little word so often seen in Quebecois records: dit.
Perhaps you are one of the many who descend from a ‘Roy dit Desjardins’, or perhaps you share my ‘Létoile dit L’Italien’ or my ‘Miville dit Deschênes’ surnames. No doubt, if you have roots in Quebec, you are bound to come across ‘dit’ in your genealogy research.
So what does it mean?
Those of you with some background in the French language may note that ‘dit’ translates to ‘said’; more applicable in this context, it could translate to ‘called’. The name Adele Létoile dit L’Italien, for example (my 3rd great grandmother!) thus could be translated as ‘Adele Létoile called L’Italien’.
Yes, Létoile and L’Italien were Adele’s surnames. Sometimes Adele appears in records as Adele Létoile, sometimes as Adele L’Italien, and sometimes as Adele Létoile dit L’Italien (and to add to the confusion, sometimes Adele Létoile-L’Italien, L’Italien-Létoile, or any other combination you can come up with).
You may be thinking “oh no… this sounds confusing”. But in reality, think of it as just one more clue helping you trace your Quebecois ancestors and the story of their own genealogy.
Where did ‘dit’ come from?
Why in the heck did our Quebec ancestors have two surnames?! The practice of using ‘dit’ arose for a few reasons:
To distinguish between two distinct families or multiple lines of the same family
Derived by a place of origin (I’ll give you one guess where Adele Létoile dit L’Italien’s ancestors came from!)
Derived by personal attributes (LeBlond or LeBlanc)
Derived from military service (a nom de guerre, if you will - and those of you with Swedish ancestors will also be familiar with this)
So… is this a good thing or a bad thing for my research?
The jury is not yet out on this one - many genealogists disagree - but in my opinion, I love dit. Imagine if all your ancestors had a secondary surname, derived from something about their family history, or their appearance?! Knowing that my 3rd great grandmother’s family was known as ‘the Létoiles, called the Italians’ gives a really fascinating look into their family history (stick around to the end of my ‘Tracing my French Canadian Ancestry’ saga to see what I found there!)
I also believe it makes tracing your ancestry through genealogical records easier, not harder, by helping you narrow down search results (by searching for both surnames) or by giving you another research route to take if the search for the first surname returns nothing.
Wondering if you may have a ‘dit’ surname in your tree that you have yet to discover? Check out this Genealogy Quebec resource to search for common dit combinations!
If you are just beginning your French Canadian genealogical research, consider following along on my journey to trace my Quebec lines: Part I of Tracing my French Canadian Ancestry - It Started with a Baptism.