Bonjour, tout le monde -- Yesterday (22 Oct), Ian <101637.210@compuserve.com> was asking about the DRAPINIER and LE DRAPINIER surnames. Specifically, he wanted to know -- 1) >..........whether the names DRAPINIER or LE DRAPINIER have been found to have Huguenot origins.> There is no way to answer this question which would fit all circumstances and families with this surname. Some Catholic persons with this name may have chosen, at some time in 16th-18th century Europe, to become Protestant. Still others -- possibly in the same family -- with the same surname, may have chosen not to. The only way such a question can be answered with certainty is for a researcher to trace his/her particular family branch back in time, finding his/her own ancestors in Huguenot records. This will only mean, however, that that particular branch or family with that surname was Huguenot. It does not prove that all branches and families with the same surname were Huguenot. 2) > Do these names actually occur as French surnames? > For an answer to this, I tried searching for this surname in various places, such as the following -- * listings in current GRD's (Genealogical Research Directory) * the online IGI (for both England and France) on the LDS site * a general search engine (www.alltheweb.com) * a genealogy search engine (www.genealogyportal.com) * telephone directories for France (http://www.teldir.com/) * telephone directories for England (http://www.bt.com/phonenetuk/) In all cases mentioned above, I found not a single reference to this name. It sounds like a perfectly reasonable French surname but, at least from my search, it doesn't seem to exist. Ian, you seem to have suspected this by asking the question. There may be three possible explanations. One, that the name does exist but we just haven't found it. Two, the name once existed but has now died out entirely (worldwide??) Three, that it actually existed under some other spelling but appeared briefly, for reasons unknown, with the (LE) DRAPINIER spelling in the area mentioned by Ian (London, late 18th century). A personal story of my own may be of interest here, in connection with the third explanation above. The dates and location are different and the surname isn't of Huguenot origin but it does include a name which doesn't exist except for a short 24 year period. It involves William IDDENDEN, who was my great grandfather. He was married in 1870 and had sixteen children between 1870-1894, all in East Kent, ENG. But if you look for that marriage or any of those births in the UK civil registration indexes you won't find them. The reason is that all are registered under the spelling HOIDENTEN, not IDDENDEN. HOIDENTEN is a surname that does not exist, as far as I know, except for these 17 civil registrations. How did it happen? Probably this way. I think William supplied his surname to the clerk at the registration office but, because of a regional Kentish accent, it sounded like HOIDENTEN and that's the way the clerk wrote it down. Because William couldn't read or write (not unusual at the time), he didn't recognize the error so he couldn't correct it. And the registration office continued to spell the name the same way for a quarter of a century. I should add that, during the same time period, the family appeared in various censuses and residents' directories with their surname spelled correctly. Hope all this has helped. Sorry for the length. Hopefully, others besides Ian will learn something which will be of use in their own searches. Andrea