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I agree Olivier is better than Oliver, but it is a little awkward to say in English. Do you put on a French accent just for the name? What exact vowel would you use at the end, e or ə or eɪ? Would you ever add a rhotic r for certain accents or would that make you sound illiterate?
Also, I wouldn't use it because I don't like Oli/Ollie/Olly. Liv and Livy are okay but could sound girly. Oliver is short enough already that people won't shorten it, but Olivier is longer and if people are confused about how to say it without a French accent, they're more likely to want to say Ollie.

I like it. As an English speaker I prefer Oliver as a first name but Olivier makes a great middle name.

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Matthew Olivier
Jonathan Olivier
Hadrian Olivier
Nicholas Olivier
Sebastian Olivier

Oliver is sufficient enough for me, but Olivier is cool.

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The problem with naming a son Olivier in an English-speaking country is that the pronunciation is so close to Olivia or Oliver you may as well just call him that. The French believe that English-speaking people have the worst French accent, and they’re not exactly wrong.

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I would maybe put Olivier as a middle name if I wanted to use it so badly, like Justin Olivier or something but as a first name? I’d think twice about that one.

No, mostly because it would sound almost exactly like Olivia, where I live.
Partly because the "famous British actor and noble" thing makes it seem kind of pompous.

This message was edited 2/21/2024, 12:37 AM

I agree. Olivier is just better than Oliver. I think I would use it even if I lived in an English-speaking area. However, I am from Canada, so people would not be confused or surprised by Olivier, even in English-speaking areas.

I don’t see the appeal. Olivier just feels like a frillier version of Oliver and too pretentious for everyday use.

I can see where you're coming from. Olivier is so beautiful, but it might meet with issues. I think I would use it, but I'd have to learn to accept that it would come with a certain level of confusion and mistakes. I enjoy Oliver as well, so it might not be so bad to keep correcting things, but if the name really grates on you the constant clarification might become annoying.

I like Olivier and the French pronunciation. I was a fan of the late actor Sir Laurence Olivier and the name reminds me of him. I still like Oliver and I think the French version may cause some confusion with English speakers unfamiliar with it.

My country has English and Afrikaans as two of its 11 or 12 official languages. (The twelfth language is sign.) In Afrikaans families, Olivier is a familiar surname, pronounced OO-ER-la-feeaR. Afrikaans people encountering, for instance, a reference to Laurence Olivier tend to pronounce it that way instead of the Anglo-French pronunciation that he used. I quite like Oliver, but not enough to use, and I'd certainly never think of using Olivier as a given name.

Olivier would frequently get mispronounced as Oliver in English-speaking countries for sure, that extra i can look quite invisible when you're reading fast and fall back on what you recognize, but I second the thought of Olivier being much more delightful. It just sounds so dashing and brisk. Oliver in comparison sounds monotone, and I'm not big on how abrupt the 'ver' ending sounds to me.

No, much prefer Oliver