Rise of ’Emna’: French Parents Embrace Subtle Muslim-Inspired Name

Baptiste Coulmont, a sociology professor at the University of Paris-8, made this discovery as he was leafing through the INSEE name file: Emma, Emma-Lou, Emmanuelle, Emmy, Emmy-Lou... and Emna, reports Le Monde. At first glance of the name "Emna", he thought it was a parental mistake, before discovering that it was not a spelling mistake. Emna is indeed a first name, but one that gives a religious identity.

If Emna was a name given to less than 10 girls per year on average before the year 2000, more than 500 girls bore this name in 2018, and more than 600 girls in 2019. This strong growth increases Emna’s chances of entering the top 100 most given names to baby girls.

Why choose this name? Baptiste Coulmont explains that many future mothers on online forums have made it clear to him that the choice of this name is justified on several levels. Some mothers believe that it is an "original and not overused" name, and "not too typical". In the eyes of others, Emna does not "sound too Muslim", which would avoid exposing a girl to Islamophobia and establishing a direct or distant link with a country of origin.

These comments led him to conclude that Emna is a possible transliteration of the name Amina, but that Amina is a "typical", "overused" name. Other women have said that Emna would be a name widely given to girls in Tunisia or Morocco.