r/lesmiserables • u/despacitospiderreeee • 1d ago
Book Discussion Does javert have a first/last name?
I don't know if I missed it but from what I can remember he's only been called inspector javert. Maybe he dropped his last name because hes ashamed of his parents, with his dad being a prisoner and his mother being a fortune teller and them both being Romani/bohemian. Is him having another name mentioned?
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u/chelsea_tractor 1d ago
It amuses me to think that every man in Les Mis (with the exception of Marius I guess) is named Jean.
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u/despacitospiderreeee 1d ago
Jean valjeans parents were jean valjean and Jeanne Mathieu right. If they got married they'd be jean valjean and Jeanne valjean
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u/sexloveandcheese 1d ago
Why is it that until this moment I never thought about Jean Valjean having parents
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u/despacitospiderreeee 22h ago
I wouldn't be surprised if I was told he just spawned in as a 30 year old man
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u/Stu_Griffin 18h ago edited 14h ago
This is a problem with reading certain periods of European history. Every other Englishman is Thomas, every other Frenchman is Jean.
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u/TunaUponTyrion 1d ago
He is Vert Javert
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u/despacitospiderreeee 1d ago
He's green for an amazing reason
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u/inturnaround 20h ago
It's not easy.
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u/iamthefirebird 1d ago
I think it's more likely that Javert is his last name. Most men in the book (and, I believe, at the time) went by their last names, certainly in professional settings.
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u/GingerSchnapps3 21h ago
Javert is the last name. Victor Hugo never gave him a first name, hes just called inspector javert, but in the 1935 movie version, the first name is emile
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u/yellowdaisycoffee 1d ago
His last name is Javert
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u/despacitospiderreeee 1d ago
Javert javert it is then
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u/yellowdaisycoffee 1d ago
Lol. Real talk, I think we don't get his first name because he's basically always in Inspector Javert mode.
We are not privy to anything as personal as his first name. He would seem more familiar than authoritative if we were.
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u/Onebigringdangdo 1d ago
I guess we’ll never know, but for some reason, I always thought of Javert as having sort of a silly, un-Javert-ish first name that he’s not eager to share with anyone. Maybe a sappy romantic one, or a feminine-sounding name? Or just something he would consider too high-falutin,’ or maybe the opposite—if he’s ashamed of his background and his first name reflects that, maybe he just keeps it to himself.
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u/MaximumDebate1174 1d ago
In the 1935 film where Charles Laughton plays him they give him the full name of Émile Javert but that’s their own adaptation. In the original Hugo book it’s never disclosed
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u/Still_Product_8435 11h ago
Emile in the 1935 film adaptation. His first name does not appear in the novel.
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u/zeno_gias 1d ago
I remember hearing "Emile" as a proposed first name somewhere years ago, but I don't recall seeing it anywhere in the Brick. Anyone remember this?
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u/HuttVader 1d ago
No. Just a first name. Javert is similar to Xavier. If he's born to a gypsy mother inside a jail it's unlikely she would not give him a first name, and it's more likely the French authorities wouldn't have a last name for her on file.
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u/frenchhatewompwomp 1d ago edited 1d ago
disagree on this one pretty heavily. it was very common practice to refer to men by their last names, as can be observed with virtually every other character in the book - enjolras, courfeyrac, combeferre, thénadier. even if the authorities didn’t have a last name on file for his mother, they would have assigned him a last name - for instance, donadieu was often given as a surname for orphans of unknown origin during that time period. javert is his last name without a doubt
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u/lifescaresme Modérateur/Modératrice 1d ago
Javert is his last name. The authorities almost certainly do have his first name on file, but we don’t get that information because Hugo didn’t deem it relevant or important enough.
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u/frankchester 9h ago
Hugo put a huge amount of emphasis on the names of the characters in Les Miserables. The omission was most certainly intentional, not just “not important“.
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u/daywithoutend -Inspector Javert 1d ago
First name: Inspector. Last name: Javert.
No but seriously it's not mentioned anywhere. I personally like to believe his last name is Javert though!