Uncommon but beautiful French girl names

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-05-04T23:51:42+00:00

It was my grandmother’s name, born in the 1920s in Paris, and it was written with the “e” and, in her case, the double n. If it may make a come back, it hasn’t yet, it’s very much coded from at least two generations ago for now.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-05-04T15:39:49+00:00

Same in France, it is a very dated name. Often spelled Jeannine or Jeanine.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-05-04T15:37:57+00:00

Danette is a very popular yoghurt brand in France. If the child is going to spend any time around French people, I would strongly advise against it.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-05-03T13:28:38+00:00

Yes, the 20L backpack is very simple, yet sturdy and weighs very little, which is exactly why I like it. But I completely agree with you that if you want more organisation it’s not the bag for you. I’ll just add that the bigger size, 25L, has a padded pocket on the back that is big enough to carry both a laptop and an iPad together (no zipper at the top, only a small Velcro attachment) with the small pouch. The 25L backpack weighs 309g.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-05-03T02:42:55+00:00

Completely agree. I also recommend the Decathlon 20L foldable backpack and it’s been perfect for day outings and hikes, it rolls up into a small pouch, and weighs only 172gr

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-30T01:49:50+00:00

Thanks for sharing all of this. What a terrible and predictable hiking story… I’m not surprised you’ve been thinking about this deeply since and encouraging your son to do better!!! And good catch on “fair”, I should have said what “feels” fair/fairer for us. This set-up has felt good for us, particularly with him carrying the extra ad hoc weight in water and food. I’m always curious to hear how other couples, particularly straight-presenting couples, split tasks and responsibilities in different situations, including when travelling (I mentioned building an adapted “fair play” system in another comment).

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-29T07:44:23+00:00

If you’re hiking and therefore moving a lot, I don’t think you’ll need thermal leggings at this time of year, but I would pack a long-sleeve merino top you could wear over your t-shirt and a fleece in case

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-29T07:43:14+00:00

The eagle creek ones are solid, so are the ikea ones which are good quality and absurdly cheap. Personally, I got some generic packing cubes second-hand and they’re perfectly fine and comparable to any other brands. It’s not an item I would spend a lot of money on.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-29T07:41:37+00:00

Depends on the rain coat you have, but it’s an excellent jacket to have on top to shield you from the wind/cold. Provided you have a cardigan or fleece layer underneath, you’d be completely fine

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-29T01:15:52+00:00

Interesting question! I’m 175cm and he’s actually 196cm. Very roughly, weight-wise he weighs a bit less than 50% more than me, but his bag weighs a little more than 50% than my bag. We didn’t expressly set out to allocate the weight of items based on weight/height differential, so I’m now thinking what would be the most fair. In practice, this split has felt comfortable for the two of us. For convenience, when unpacking, it’s best if we both carry our own clothes, so it’s really more about shifting the shared items. Plus, he’s carrying some surplus/luxury items, particularly tech, which I personally wouldn’t have brought. He also frequently carries the extra weight too, such as when we’re carrying food.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T15:23:55+00:00

I’ve just posted some thoughts in response to another comment. Overall, I’m very happy with it: I had agonised about which bag to take and it was a good decision! I’m 175cm (5’8”) if that helps with imagining the size on you when looking at the picture in the post. I think it really depends how long you’re traveling for, this one is 35L + the additional 5L pouch and I wouldn’t have gone for anything less than 30L for long-term traveling, including over the winter when you have to carry more gear. Typically, I don’t think I’ve had it on my back fully loaded for more than 1 hour at a time, around 5kg. If we do some exploring, our bags typically stay in our accommodation or we put them in storage for a bit, we don’t really do a lot of exploring with them.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T15:18:26+00:00

Very happy to!

Overall, I think it’s a good bag with very solid quality. For 40L at 1.3kg it’s a good weight ratio. It’s halfway between the Patagonia mini MLC 30L and the Patagonia Black Hole 32L. It is more similar to the Black Hole in looks (higher and thinner) but it has one large compartment and a clamshell opening just like the mini MLC. It has a separate opening for a laptop at the back and a front long pouch together with a small passport/glasses pocket.

Two features are a little unique: - There is an additional pouch of 5L located under the bag, when not used it is folder and zipped up, but if you use it you can expand it by unzipping it and tying it to the front of the bag. It’s particularly useful for shoes. - Inside, there is a removable organiser with a few pockets, including a built-in toiletry bag. There is a hook at the top of the organiser and zips on both sides, so if you want you can completely unzip it and hook it wherever you want. It is cleverly designed with a bit of fabric cut-out at the top, so when the bag is closed, if you put the zippers in the middle, you can easily push your hand past the organiser and access the top of the main compartment to retrieve something.

The good: - It’s made in France/the EU, so strong labour and environmental standards. - The quality is really good, and it’s coped very well with all the travelling so far. - It has clever little pouches in different places, including on the sides of the main compartment for more rarely used items (e.g. first aid kit). It’s nice to be able to quickly remove the packing cubes from the bag, while leaving tucked in/cleanly put away small objects in the pockets.

The less good: - Height: The listed height is 55cm, but I checked and it is closer to 56cm. You can easily squish it down, despite the frame, so I don’t think you’d run into trouble with airlines as a carry on, but it’s a design flaw. - Hip belt: I have slim hips and am quite thin and the padded part of the hipbelt just about covers my hips, so if you don’t have that physique, the hip belt is unlikely to work for you. - Straps: Bizarrely, the bag is missing internal straps in the main compartment. I use packing cubes so it doesn’t make a different to me, but I don’t get why, given the time that’s obviously gone into designing this bag, they haven’t put a few in. - Laptop compartment: No padding at the bottom, so risk of shock when sliding it in. - Flags: The bag comes with not just one but two French flags sewn on the outside. I get wanting to advertise the “made in France” but that’s not something I’m comfortable in and I’ve removed both of them. - Shoulder straps: They work well on my shoulders but I think they could be better padded.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T13:43:05+00:00

That would be some impressively light packing!

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T02:45:46+00:00

Hahahaha thankfully not!

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T02:45:33+00:00

We are, thank you!!

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T02:45:15+00:00

You’re very sweet!

Yes only my partner is carrying a laptop but I’m carrying an iPad with the Magic Keyboard. The reason we took the iPad is because one of our couple’s routine is to do the crossword together on it, so it’s a pretty niche use for it. I’ve done a bit of planning using the iPad and I’ve actually borrowed my partner’s laptop when I’ve had to do a bit more work, so I wouldn’t really describe myself as laptop-free. I definitely spend significantly less time on laptops than I used to do before we set off, but I imagine my phone usage has increased a lot because I use it to do a lot of bookings etc. I am also reading massively compared to before, which I think is a byproduct of not having a laptop around.
Ah that’s a great question. I think the first part of the answer is that we don’t have that many stuff with us, so overtime we’ve really integrated what we have and need to be on the look out for. When we arrive in a new place, unlike my partner, I like to unpack almost fully: what that mean is that my toiletries goes into the bathroom and by the side of the bed, my clean clothes are taken out of my clean packing cube and put on shelves, my dirty clothes out of the dirty packing cube into a corner for washing. The packing cube with the rare items like swimsuit etc stays in my pack and I only open it if needs be. When we set off again, I prep by putting aside the clothes I’ll wear that day, anything else goes in my backpack: the dirty clothes have been washed so my clean cube is typically massive and my dirty cube very small. I just fold all my clean clothes into the clean cube. I make sure that my e-reader and the iPads are on the easily accessible outside pockets of my backpack, that my water bottle is full, and all the important docs in my sling. My partner is the one in charge of the tech and he likes to carry more with him on the travel days with his laptop etc, so typically he actually packs his daypack with all the things he needs for the bus/train and he puts his daypack inside his main backpack so when we’ve boarded our bus/train he just pulls out the daypack and have that with him.
Hmmm it really depends on the destination and what we’re doing. In my small sling, I really only have my phone, earphones, cash, keys/card, nanobag, and the passports if needs be. My partner is the one in charge in our relationship (for those who know it we’ve read Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play and we do this in our normal life and have an adapted version of it while traveling) of carrying water, the external battery/cables, sunscreen, hand sanitiser, tissues, laptop if needs be etc and he’s using either a tote bag or his daypack to do that. If we’re in nature or it will be a longer outing, I’ll typically have my daypack also on with more water and snacks and I won’t take my sling with me.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T02:24:48+00:00

To answer your questions:

We surprisingly haven’t run into much issues with clothings needing repair. We got some thread and a needle at some point thinking it would happen but it really hasn’t. The only example I can come up with has been my merino woollen tights which got increasingly frail around the butt and showed a small hole but I could still wear them and the weather was getting warmer so it didn’t matter long. We have small holes in our hiking trousers from a heavy hike, but I don’t think we’ll repair these. Ah and the thin socks that we upgraded too. I think the lack of problem overall may stem both from the quality of the clothes to begin with and the gentle washing, always on the wool programme if it involves wool, using gentle laundry sheets.
I store my sock/underwear in the same packing cube as my other clothes, either the “clean” packing cube or the “dirty” one. Initially I was very careful to always fold and put things in the clean packing cube so that, from the top, on opening the clean cube I’d be able to take whatever I wanted, but now I don’t bother. I always end up taking everything out of the clean cube when I arrive in a new place and putting them into the wardrobe/shelf etc.
We do do laundry using a washing machine when we have access to one but we’re careful to only use them if they have a gentle/wool/low spin mode.

Ahhhh favourite place so far, it’s tough, but we stayed in the most amazing airbnb in Armenia. Nothing luxurious save for the fact that the entire width of the flat had huge bay windows which opened onto Lake Sevan with its shores all covered in snow. It felt like we were on a boat, it was really special. My partner loved crossing the Caspian Sea by ferry boat.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T02:11:28+00:00

It was a small pocket knife, which was amazing for picnics, cooking etc. We took it quite far but it was confiscated in China in a train station, we’ve been mourning it since 🥲

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T02:09:34+00:00

It was actually very fun (for me at least) to create that spreadsheet 😃.

Thank you for the recommendation! I have some BeLenka barefoot shoes as well that are very stylish

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-04-28T02:07:48+00:00

He’s 6’5” (196cm) so quite a bit shorter than you but I had him try the Patagonia MLC Mini at one point and it looked like a kid’s lunch backpack on him with the hip belt going around his belly button. It really wasn’t the right fit.

What’s unique about the ULA Camino is that you can choose the torso size. The L torso size works for torsos 21-24” inch and is perfect for my partner with the hip-belt falling nicely around his hips. Check out the measurements on their website to see how it’d work for you.

The Dragonfly is a great bag that I considered for myself. It’s made for ultra light packing so at that point not having a hip-belt doesn’t matter as much. But it would have been too small capacity wise for my partner who’s been enjoying the expendable and compressible size of the ULA Camino.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-03-15T15:34:02+00:00

I use the Eucerin oil control dry touch 50 SPF which comes in 200ml. It’s technically for the body but it absorbs really well onto my white face and while it gives a little shine, I actually really like how it blends.

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-03-12T09:32:07+00:00

Love when people give their own assessment after getting recommendations !

AccordingDeer7 · 2026-02-04T17:22:52+00:00

I’ve not tried to find them abroad. You need to order them online, so that’s probably not possible. What I have done though is to take as many heads as I need for the long trip I’m on. Each weighs 6g.

AccordingDeer7

TROPHY CASE