Voltaire's "Candide"?

Question

Is there a reason behind why Voltaire entitled his famous novel Candide besides the main character's name? Is this name just a name...or does it have meaning behind it? Answers please and thankyou!

Answer 1

Candide means frank, honest, and open. Voltaire and J. K. Rowlings had reasons to give all their characters names. Another Voltaire character was Dr. Pangloss--he could gloss over everything. If anyone regretted anything bad, Dr. Pangloss would say, "If things had happened in a different way, then that would have been a different world from this, and this is the most perfect of all possible worlds."