Parissiens HELP PLEASE!! Arrondissements´names??

Question

Hello,

I am doing a research about Paris and its arrondissements. I need to find any alternative names they may have.
I read in Wikipedia that "Municipal arrondissements do not have names, they have only numbers (except in Paris where they also have names, but nobody use those names, not even the Paris administration)"

Can anyone tell me PLEASE what those names are, or where could I find them!?!?

Merci beacoup!

thanks to all for your answers!
If you come by this question again, can you tell me what do you think about this link:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ier_arrondissement_(Paris)

Could these be the names that Wikipedia in another link was talking about? Did whomever write this make it all up?

Thanks for your expertise!

Answer 1

The names you are referring to do exist, however they are not used as you assume in your question.

All those names stand for the former villages around Paris. When the arrondissements or districts were created there were only 12. The number was increased to 20 in 1860 and included those former villages that were already part of the city (knowing that the first 12 arrondissements where already a conglomerate of villages).

You will find in some late XIXth century documents references to the Xe or XIe, etc... ancien (former Xth or XIth) as like with any change it took some time for people to get used to it.

You find many references to those names in French literature as the notion of arrondissement was then purely an administrative matter.

Back then you would mail your letter to Passy or Saint Germain des Près.

So all those names being former villages you can't consider they correspond to an arrondissement at all, as few names/villages became one arrondissement. Those names are the original ones centuries old when you had fields and farms in what has become the center of Paris.

In France we refer to most of them (some are forgotten) as sub-districts (quartiers in French).

This is the case when you hear about La Cité, L'Île Saint-Louis, Saint-Germain des Près, Montmartre, Beaubourg (where the Pompidou museum stands), Mouffetard, Passy, Invalides, Ternes, Belleville, La Villette... and so many more. So we do use those former villages names...

In some instances the name of a monument / historical landmark took over: Trocadero, it used to be la butte Chaillot... or major local street/avenue/boulevard names.

This villages/sub-districts system was maintained in all minds until very recently as most of it was the base of the phone numbering system. You would get an operator and ask for Passy 38 21 or Invalides 40 32, etc...

The system changed a first time around the 60s or 70s with the disappearance of phone operators; this without much changes to the phone numbering system, phone reporting both letters and numbers you would dial 727 for Passy by example 7 = P 2=A 7=S and some old people still remember old phone numbers like this.

By example my grand-mother in Paris has 705 in her phone number which stands for SOL of Solférino (not a village reference here). Since the phone numbering changed twice (by adding prefix numbers) and phone numbers increased from 5 (until 1985) to 8 now; so unless you kept the old number over that time the geographical reference has vanished.

So you got a good point, there are some names behind the arrondissements cold numbers but, even though they are still in all Paris residents minds and mouths, they are not used for the same purpose.

All the best with your research...

Answer 2

I've never heard of arrondissements being given a name... Some areas of Paris do have names but they have no relationship to the arrondissment. Some areas may span multiple arrondissments, others may be in a subset of one. Some of these areas I can think of on the top of my head are:
* Quartier Latin (5th and 6th)
* Marais (3rd and 4th)
* Montmartre (18th)
* Montparnasse (14th)
* Passy (16th)

Maybe more... Les Halles, Pigalle, Bercy may or may not qualify... I'm not very certain what the criteria!

Answer 3

That's wrong!
In Paris, "arrondissements" go from 1st to 20th. There are no names to them.

Answer 4

as far as i'm aware, parisien arrondissements never had names but numbers, although the different areas and "gates" were all named

Answer 5

http://realink.org/c-arbre/mwiki/index.php?title=Arrondissements_de_Paris&carbre_Session=cc2fa9d297526a3acd27eea548a9f153

try this website there is a chart about arrondissements' names, but there are never used here.

Answer 6

I've never heard people use names, only ever numbers.

Have you tried asking your embassy there? They are sure to know of some.