Re: pronunciation of name
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In reply to:
pronunciation of name
12/01/98
Very interesting discussion about the pronunciation.I am descended from Joseph Saucier and Julia Robidoux of Quebec. They were my great-great grandparents.When my great-grandfather Alexander Saucier came from Cornwall, Ontario to Brasher Falls, NY (and later to Baldwinsville, NY), the name was Americanized to "Socia", because it was pronounced "so-see-yay".Apparently, because it then looked like the English word "social", it was pronounced in the same way as "social" without the "l".Alexander's brother changed his to "Sochia", still pronounced like "social" without the "l".I was always told, though, that the proper pronunciation was "saw-see-yay".I have a friend named Saucier (who is a distant relative somehow) who came originally from Maine.Her family in Maine (mostly French-speaking) pronounce it "saw-see-er".
I have been told that the original Saucier in Quebec, Canada (New France) from whom all of us new world Sauciers, Socias, etc. came, was Louis Saucier, born around 1634 in St-Eustache, v. et archev. Paris, Ile-de-France (Paris).His first marriage was to Marie Marguerite Gaillard DuPlessis in Quebec in 1671. Research of Marie Marguerite is that she was a "Filles du Roi" or "Daughter of the King".These were 800 women rounded up by Louis the Sun King of France over a period of ten years to be wives to the settlers and soldiers of New France.They were widows and orphans of child bearing age, and some say some prostitutes.Marie Marguerite was married 4 times.She had two children by Louis.Louis's father was Charles Saucier, listed on a list of Renaissance Musicians in Paris (St. Eustache), and his mother was Charlotte Clairet.Then I was also told that the very first of our line ever that went by the name Saucier was a sauce maker in France in the 1500s, but I the details of that elude me at the moment.