Names
Dumas used several names in his life: Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, Thomas Rethoré (or Retoré), Alexandre Dumas, Alex Dumas, and finally Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie. "Davy de la Pailleterie" is his father's family name. He used the name "Retoré" (sometimes spelled Rethoré) during and for some years after the period in which his father sold him and then re-purchased him (1775-1776). According to the biographer Tom Reiss, the name Retoré "was perhaps picked up from a neighbor in Jérémie (where the name can be found on official records of the period)." The name Dumas is from his mother. The first record of his use of the name "Alexandre Dumas" is his entry in the registry book of the Queen's Dragoons, which he joined on June 2, 1786. (It was known in his platoon that this was "not his real name.") He used the simple form "Alex Dumas" starting in 1794. General Dumas used the full name "Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie" on his son's birth certificate
Read more about this topic: Thomas-Alexandre Dumas
Famous quotes containing the word names:
““Well then, it’s Granny speaking: ‘I dunnow!
Mebbe I’m wrong to take it as I do.
There ain’t no names quite like the old ones, though,
Nor never will be to my way of thinking.
One mustn’t bear too hard on the newcomers,
But there’s a dite too many of them for comfort....’””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Holding myself the humblest of all whose names were before the convention, I feel in especial need of the assistance of all.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)