Hello Gerald, Well now from the little knowledge I may have on this subject, I fear that you could have a long way to go in your researching of the name DE FRANCE or variations. Simply put, the name means "in France" or "of France". For a variety of reasons, parents were to have children out of wedlock, and so there are times when the name of the country of birth was given to the child. That is, parentage unknown other than born in France. It was commonly used in the early 12th to 13th century to designate people of some nobility who were not to inherit titles or estates, usually daughters or even at times, sons who were born to concubines. In relatively modern use is the Italian version of Franca. And so it is not all that unusual to discover many with the name, by example, Mario FRANCA. Perhaps the origins of such a name would have been Mario DE FRANCE. Well they are my current thoughts on your puzzle, perhaps others have a different idea ? Kind Regards, Peter Leroy