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
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Famous quotes containing the word names:
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—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
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Triangles and the names of girls.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“A name? Oh, Jesus Christ. Ah, God, I’ve been called by a million names all my life. I don’t want a name. I’m better off with a grunt or a groan for a name.”
—Bernardo Bertolucci (b. 1940)