Talk:François Martin (navigator)

A fact from François Martin (navigator) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 November 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in 1604, François Martin de Vitré became the first Frenchman to publish an account of his travels to the Far East?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/November.

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Name queried

In spite of numerous English-language references to "Martin de Vitré", is this man simply François Martin, of the port of Vitré? Could be. And the other figure mentioned is Pierre Olivier Malherbe, also of Vitré. The family Martin de Vitré didn't exist. There was in fact a sieur de Vitré, but in Canada; his surname was Denys and he would be called M. Denys de Vitré; the notorious member of that family was Théodose-Mathieu Denys de Vitré. In the parish of Saint-Martin de Vitré, the seigneurie was not a "Vitré" at all, but rather that of the Sieur des Rochers, known for its association with Mme de Sevigné: see this article in the Bulletin et mémoires du Société archéologique du Département d'Ille-et-Vilaine, Volumes 28-29 (1899).--Wetman (talk) 07:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"François Martin de Vitré" seems to be the most common usage, in French also (see Amazon.fr, see also "Martin de Vitré" [1] and [2]), probably because "François Martin" is such a common name to start with, and also because it was common usage at that time to add the region of provenance to the familly name. Best regards PHG ^{Per Honor et Gloria} 08:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No it wasn't. Vous parlez par vôtre chapeau.--Wetman (talk) 08:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another such case would be François Pyrard de Laval, from.... Laval, but it really doesn't matter, you can change the title if you wish :-) Cheers PHG ^{Per Honor et Gloria} 09:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

interesting discussion. However it s clear from the book he wrote that at he time he was referred to as Martin Francois de Vitré because that is how I is printed on the title page. Please refer to the BNF scan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.58.246.135 (talk) 18:19, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]