You Are What Your Name Says You Are: By ELISABETH VINCENTELLI

IN France, a person’s name can signify as little as a measure of what’s big on TV at any given time, or as much as an entire country’s nature.
The recent publication there of two annual guides charting the popularity of first names could only prompt more soul-searching in a nation already painfully struggling with how to define its character. The issue appears so urgent that President Nicolas Sarkozy felt the need to create a Ministry of Immigration and National Identity, and the government has passed a law authorizing DNA testing to establish family links among would-be immigrants.
The discussion of names is much lighter in tone. It turns out that names featuring “a” are hot for girls (Clara, Sarah, Léa), as are “o” ones for boys (Mathéo, Enzo, Hugo). Scratch a bit deeper, and race and class quickly rear their heads. After all, names can provide an immediate indication of someone’s background in a country that does not include ethnicity in its national statistics, and where salaries are rarely discussed in public.
In a recent article pegged to the publication of one of the guides, Joséphine Besnard’s “Index of First Names in 2008,” the newspaper Libération asked 15 people to talk about their own names, prompting a lively debate on its Web site. A few readers commented on some French assumptions. “What of the new first names — Binta, Jamila, Lin, Ahmed, etc. — of an increasing number of French people?” wrote one commentator at the Web site. “It would have been interesting to look into that issue and how society perceives people with those names, people who may be born here but whose parents almost certainly weren’t.”
But Guy Desplanques, a demographer, pointed out in 2002 that names like Ahmed and Jamila actually were on the wane, and that second-generation French men and women work toward integration by coming up with variations like Yanis or Rayan; the latter has become popular in some banlieues, evoking both the Maghreb and the relatively widespread Ryan.
Ms. Besnard’s father was the sociologist Philippe Besnard, who did extensive work on first names, establishing that until the 1970s the popularity of names trickled down from the upper classes. For instance, “Gilles” peaked in France’s high-society registry in 1942 and in the general population in 1960. That all changed in the 1980s, when the less wealthy and less educated turned into first-name innovators (perhaps caught up in fads spread by popular music and TV) while the rich rediscovered more traditional French-sounding names.
Sociologists like Mr. Besnard observed that first names were often quick markers of social and educational status. As another Libération reader, an elementary school teacher, pointed out: “I can often guess the ‘profile’ of a child thanks to the first name. A ‘Maxime,’ a ‘Louise,’ a ‘Kevin,’ a ‘Lolita.’ It’s sad, but that’s how it often works.” That is, Maxime and Louise probably have wealthy parents, while Kevin and Lolita are more likely to have a working- or lower-middle-class background.
Indeed, bourgeois French parents are unlikely to give their children “Anglo-Saxon” names; Jennifer was the most popular name for girls from 1984 to 1986, but it’s a safe bet few Jennifers came from well-educated families. (The craze is commonly explained by the success of the TV series “Hart to Hart” in France at that time — Jennifer Hart was one of the title characters — while “Beverly Hills, 90210,” featuring a popular character named Dylan McKay, is sometimes blamed for the explosion of Dylans a few years later.)
This quick profiling can hamper those looking for a job: Several studies have shown that all things being equal, applicants with “foreign”-sounding names are less likely to be hired. But that’s only one more hurdle to the work force’s integration: It is not rare in France to encounter job postings that request candidates to reveal their marital status and age, and to attach a photo to their résumés.