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Welcome to Kentucky — no, this is not France, although you can see Paris, Versailles and a county named Bourbon all within a short drive.
While it’s common across much of the United States for cities to have roots in French, Kentucky has its own history when it comes to city names and their pronunciations la mode française — “in French fashion.”
Here’s the story behind the French names in the Commonwealth.
Kentucky was shaped by waves of the second and third generations of French descendants of the Huguenots, a group of Protestants who were forced to leave France in the late 17th century due to religious persecution.
Sam Dunn, the executive director at Liberty Hall Historic Site in Frankfort, said there were several massacres at the time that led to the group coming to America.
At the end of the 18th century, many Kentuckians had begun calling themselves Jeffersonians, with ideals rooted in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, and saw the French Revolution as a beacon of hope for democracy.
“There was even a club in Lexington that specifically supported and waited for news of the revolution even though it took weeks to get updates,” said John Walker, curator at the Liberty Hall Historical Site.
Kentucky was also considered a vital middle ground for trade connections with the French in Quebec and New Orleans, which reinforced alignments with France, even if not directly. According to Walker, Kentucky would trade its special goods like hemp and alcohol, including early bourbon, along the Ohio River.
French culture was perceived to be high class, and separated the elite from the common people. French became the most common second language among Kentucky women, who were often required to learn it in boarding schools, Walker said.
“This led to a long relationship of travelers and tourists between Kentucky and France into the early part of the 20th century,” Walker said.
Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, was born and raised in Lexington, a place commonly referred to as “Athens of the West,” given its wealth of educational opportunities. Most of Todd’s education came from her private tutor, who, unsurprisingly, was a French immigrant, Charlotte Mentelle.
Today, Mentelle’s name lives on in Lexington through Mentelle Park, a historic neighborhood of 48 residences built between 1906 and 1934. Tucked just off Richmond Road in downtown Lexington, the neighborhood is marked by limestone pillars at its entrance.
French influence in Kentucky also crystallized when famous French figures visited the state.
“Their presence really invigorated interest in France and French culture,” Walker said.
On Oct. 17, 1797, Prince Louis Phillipe, exiled from France, visited Kentucky while waiting for the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Prince Phillipe went to Bardstown, where he stayed at Old Talbott Tavern, one of the oldest continuously operating taverns in the country, according to the restaurant.
The most memorable visit was by the Marquis de Lafayette, a major general in the Revolutionary War and its last surviving hero. While in Kentucky, Lafayette visited Louisville, Frankfort and Lexington, where he stayed at Keene Place — a historic house on the land that would eventually become Keeneland.
On May 16, Lexington celebrated 200 years since Lafayette’s visit.
The French, both its culture and language, became a sign of honor and power, and Kentucky started to look like a love letter to France.
Louisville was named after Louis XVI, the king of France, for his support during the Revolutionary War.
Similarly, settled in the late 18th century, Paris was named in 1790 as a record of gratitude to the French during the war.
Bourbon County was named after the House of Bourbon, the royal family of King Louis XVI, in recognition of France’s military assistance during that same time.
Versailles was also a personal tribute to the Marquis de Lafayette, who had lived in Versailles, France, in recognition of France’s essential alliance with the United States.
While there are plenty of cities with French name origins, the original pronunciations have not stuck around.
Words from other languages, like French, get processed through the speaking of sounds — in this case American English, according to Kevin McGowan, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Kentucky. This means English speakers ignore the native French stress pattern, applying an American-like pronunciation instead.
This can be seen clearly with Versailles.
McGowan said for local speakers in Kentucky, pronouncing “vair-sigh” the French way sounds entirely wrong.
Locally, the city is pronounced “ver-SAYLZ.”
Other words like “Louisville,” pronounced “Lou-a-Vul,” also signal who is a local.
The city ranks among the top mispronounced in the country, with a top Google search being “how to pronounce Louisville?”
“If you don’t pronounce with the local variant, then you stand out,” McGowan said.
That pattern, however, does not seem to occur in words like Paris, which puts Kentucky in a unique speech variation, according to McGowan.
“If you say you’re going to Paris, Kentucky, nobody goes, ‘I think you mean ‘Pah-REE,’” McGowan said. “That never happens.”
With no clear explanation, other words like Bourbon — widely accepted as “BUR-buhn” by both locals and newcomers, not the French “bohr-bawn” — also avoid scrutiny.
Kentucky’s French names reflect a broader truth observed by sociolinguists: language and its variations reveal deeper social patterns.
McGowan said speaking only one language is typical in English-speaking countries. Unlike most other nations, when English blends with a second language, the result often stands out socially.
“The way it happens is very Kentucky, but the general pattern is very human,” McGowan said.