Plenty of people who live in Louisiana or are from there have Cajun surnames associated with Acadian history. Many of those names came to Louisiana through Acadian families whose roots lay in France and whose communities developed in what are now Canada’s Maritime Provinces. A surname can help point a researcher toward the right language, region, spelling variants, and record sets, but it should not be treated as proof of a single origin.
Cajun surnames in Family Research
French settlement in Acadie began in 1604, at the start of the seventeenth century. Acadian surnames may come from personal names, places, occupations, or nicknames. The following meanings describe the linguistic roots of several familiar names; they do not identify the life story of every family that bears them.
Guidry — The Louisiana spelling Guidry commonly represents Acadian Guédry or Guedry. The deeper origin is not completely certain. It has been connected with old Germanic name elements referring to wood, forest, or a hunting place. Family histories associate several Louisiana Guidry and Guedry lines with Acadian settlers, but the surname alone does not prove descent from one founder.
Broussard — Broussard is generally connected with French words such as brousse or broussaille, referring to brush or scrubland. It may have begun as a topographic name or nickname. Historical records contain forms such as Brossard, Brousset, Brusse, Brousse, Broussette, Brusey, and Brosset. Not every similar spelling represents the same family, so records must establish the connection.
Landry — Landry comes from the Old French personal name Landri, from the Germanic elements land, “land,” and rīc, “power” or “ruler.” That is the origin of the personal name, not evidence that every early Landry was a powerful landowner. Separate Landry families may also have other origins.
Hébert — Hébert developed from a form of the Germanic personal name Herbert or Haribert, built from elements meaning “army” and “bright” or “famous.” The name does not show that its first bearer was a celebrated soldier. Preserve the accent when the historical record uses Hébert, but search Hebert and other variants as well.
LeBlanc — LeBlanc literally means “the white.” As a surname it was often a descriptive nickname, perhaps for light hair or a pale complexion, but the exact reason varies by family. For any proposed foundling connection, look for admission or baptism records that explain how the child was named.
Any Surname with “Dit” in It — In New France, dit means “said” or “called.” A dit name was an alias used to distinguish a person or branch of a family. It might refer to a place, an occupation, a personal characteristic, a military name, or another circumstance. For example, a man recorded as Pierre Tremblay dit Beaulieu might appear under Tremblay, Beaulieu, or the combined form. Different descendants might keep different parts of the name.
Moving from Canada to Louisiana
Britain acquired mainland Nova Scotia in 1713. Beginning in 1755, during the conflict known in North America as the French and Indian War, British authorities deported thousands of Acadians in the upheaval remembered as Le Grand Dérangement. Families were separated and dispersed to British colonies, Britain, France, the Caribbean, and other destinations. Some later reached Louisiana, then governed by Spain, where they joined a population that already included Indigenous peoples, Europeans, free people of color, and enslaved Africans and their descendants.
Those migrations helped shape Cajun culture, but not every person with a familiar Louisiana French surname followed the same path. Work backward from Louisiana civil, church, land, probate, and census records; record every spelling; and use the surname meaning as a clue rather than a conclusion.
Learn More
Continue with The Origin and Meaning of Finnish Surnames, or explore our free genealogy eBooks. For further research, see Acadian history from the National Park Service.
