New at the DCB: Aegidius

This week's new entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography is Aegidius Fauteux, historian, librarian, lawyer, homme de lettres.  In my days as a student of New France, I came across many of his edited documents.  Longtime blog-followers might just recall the anonymous supply clerk's journal, a Fauteux publication I used copiously when I "liveblogged" the siege of Quebec in 1759/2009. 

But mostly the biography makes me want to celebrate the wonderful proliferation of given names in Quebec in the late 19th and early 20th century. Maybe it was the large families in need of new names, but ones like Jean-Baptiste and Francois that prevailed in New France gave way to many more colourful successors.

Aegidius, son of Hercule and Exilda, was raised in Sainte-Cunegonde, and among the uniquely named friends and colleagues named in the biography are Edouard-Zotique, Gonzague, Napoleon, Nazaire, and others. The habit has faded in modern Quebec -- Yannick is about as bold as it gets now.  The trend may have survived longer in Acadia, notably in the gloriously named poet, scholar, and former lieutenant governor of the province Herménégilde Chiasson (b.1946).