Montreal City Weblog

Kate 21:52 on 2022-08-06 Permalink Reply  

• JP 22:50 on 2022-08-06 Permalink

  This is the first I’m hearing of this and I don’t know why but I find it so surprising that a name like Kevin would end up being looked down upon.

• Kevin 23:37 on 2022-08-06 Permalink

  It’s okay, I’m used to it 😉

  And the final season of Kevin can F$&% himself starts in a few weeks.

• dhomas 06:32 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  Also? What problem does Montreal or Quebec have with Kevin? Did I miss something?
  I’ve been working for French companies for about 12 years, so I know about the name Kevin. There are other names that elicit a response from the French. I once hired an employee called Bryan and every single time I would say his name to one of my French colleagues, I would get the response “Where is Bryan? Bryan is in the kitchen!”. (https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Your-Questions/Why-is-Bryan-in-the-kitchen)

• steph 07:17 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhbrR4-Z5fw

  Also I’ve known some anglophone Kevins that have had problems with the quebec government francizing their names to Kévin, (They’ve also done it to my name, changing mine to stéph, ugh.)

• Kate 09:58 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  steph, my sister had a female friend whose name was Jean Mary, and the Quebec government persisted in giving her a health card marked as male.

• Chris 10:50 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  For a minute Kate, your summary had me thinking “our” Kevin had made international news. 🙂

• Robert H 11:32 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  @dhomas, Ha ha! Mystery solved! My college linguistics professor would have had a field day parsing the significance or process by which names acquire a cultural symbolism that resonates across language, time and distance. Which is academese for this stuff is deep. I feel pretty safe myself, a minor benefit of my extremely common given plus family names. Most anglo-based directories would yield at least 20 with MY name. It sounds like a fellow who would show up at the TOWIE/Jersey Shore backyard party on steph’s video link in a three-piece suit. Calisse! C’est Bob! Viens t’asseoir, mange d’la marde! It’s all mixed up with class, zeitgeist and image and one day someone says your name or that of someone you know, people start laughing and cracking jokes, and you think, “huh!?”

• Meezly 11:34 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  Maybe with the global popularity of the Despicable Me franchise it also didn’t help that the main Minion is called Kevin.

• Robert H 11:43 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  @Kate, I would have thought your sister’s friend would have had a bigger problem being continually confused with someone named Jeanne-Marie.

• DeWolf 11:47 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  @dhomas, in Quebec, Kevin is associated with macho blowhards who drive pick-up trucks and listen to Radio X. Same with Steve. Although “those” kinds of Steves and Kevins often spell their name Steeve and Keveun.

  La Presse had an article on the phenomenon in 2018:

  https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/6ec06f58-078d-4f5b-bed8-b5f64a530ef1%7C_0.html

• Joey 11:47 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  Have they not seen this in France?

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rhbrR4-Z5fw

• Kate 12:57 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  Robert H: Jean-Marie is an old-fashioned double-barrelled French boys’ name.

• Robert H 13:44 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  My roots are showing. I should have known. If I grew up in France with that name, I’d have changed it by now.

• Kate 15:49 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  The mythos of Kevin-ness also got a boost on Reddit from this story and this postscript.

• Kevin 16:31 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  You have Kevin Dances With Wolves Costner and Kevin sadistic home guardian McAllister.
  When the kids named after this duo come of age, they have multiple idiot Kevins in The Office, King of Queens, Mall Cop, and of course Britney Spears’ second husband.

• steph 17:23 on 2022-08-07 Permalink

  Germans have been mocking Kevin’s for a while – there’s university research on the subject and it’s warranted it’s own wiki entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevinism

• Moses 10:12 on 2022-08-09 Permalink

  I say “je m’appele Moses,” and I get “ah, vous vouliez dire Moise” and… uh, that’s not my name but okay.

• Orr 22:09 on 2022-08-10 Permalink

  @Moses, I ‘m surprised, because my coworkers frequently use Moses as a curse word. Of course, with laicité, the kids today probably don’t. This makes me wonder if religious curse words are going to disappear what with the decoupling of Quebec society from the reins of the papacy.