Alizée: The Name
 

Any Alizée fan knows that her name is the feminine translation of "The Tradewind". Most of us only know her as the phonetic name "Alizée".

Do French speakers, in their minds, refer to Alizée as "The tradewind"?

What I mean is like, if it were translated back into English would we refer to her as "Tradewind" and nickname her "windy"?

"Next month, Tradewind releases her fourth album"... is that what French people hear?

I never knew that. You learn something new everyday, huh.

I never thought about that.

I think that French always use article before word, so when the speak about tradewind they probably say 'l'alizé'. But Alizée is just french female name (not very popular), I think that they aren't wondering about that:)
Now part "Did you know?"
Alizé is also 'nickname'(?) for French anti submarine plane - Breguet br.1050 Alizé (constructed in 1960):)

True. And btw french magazine always do plays on words with her nickname...
(Alizée, a new wind is blowing... and so on...):p

L'Alizée
 

Apt. She's a force of nature.

That's what i always think about Alizée and some friends, when they tell me their name means something, I wonder if they call each other that, or if its different in some way. :confused:

A name is a name weather it means something or not, her name means "tradewind" but her name is Alizee, its like Asian names, most Chinese and Japanese names have to do with something related to their culture.

Well, when I call a name, I don't think about the meaning of the name. Sometimes yes I do, but very rarely. And I dont think you too start thinking about the meaning as soon as you call your friend's name. We get used to the names and we rarely think about their meaning. For example, my name is 'Vineet' ( a hindi word, meaning prayer) and I dont think that you will start calling me 'prayer' as soon as I enter USA. You might someday ask me whats the meaning of your name and I would give you the answer. You may think abt it for a moment and then leave it, thats all. The names only create an impression in our mind. We cant interchange names with their meaning.

Exactly, When ever I say a name I don't think of the meaning

I asked my friend who speaks fluent French if he knew Alizee. He said he didnt know Alizee the singer but he said that using alizee for tradewind is very rare because the have other words for it.

It's like the typical female name Grace.
Grace means something, but when it's a name, you really forget that it can connotate to something else.

My real name Kenneth (which i've always hated) means 'handsome'. If you'd ever seen me.........!!!
It's also the most popular boys name in China. Whatever it is in Chinese obviously.

excellent, excellent point

Besides I'm sure that "Tradewind" is the second translation, the first being "Perfection."

Alizé=tradewind
Alizée=Perfection:)
And I agree with Barret of course

Poguezilla actually has a song by the name "Tradewind" for just such a reason ;)

i don't think so... i mean, i know that my korean name is supposed to have some sort of meaning to it as well, but when talking, its just.. well, my name.

i also have a Filipino friend who's last name is deleon, but i don't think people go, oh! Of Lion?! *shrug*

A while back when I translated an article with Alizee's name in it back before Dictionary.com was updated and different. I translated it into American English and it replace her name with the word Geostrophic then I looked up what that word meant and it says it means: Geostrophic: "of or pertaining to the balance between the Coriolis force and the horizontal pressure force in the atmosphere." So we can either nickname her Geostrophic... lol or windy would be just dandy too!

Statistics
 

I've found some interesting data about name Alizée itself.

Generally Alizée is quite new name in France (since 1980). It isn't also very popular name, there were/are 9731 Alizée in 1946-2006.
Lili had very big influence on popularizing her name,
in 2001: 1201 girls received name Alizée (64th most popular name in that year),
in 2000 it was just 561:)

Just look at this and this site:)(they are in french of course)