The Surprisingly Unsurprising Facts Behind The Name

I think I enjoy the creation of post titles more than anything else. The "name" in question, though, is my last name: LeCompte. I’m asked a lot by people about it. Not sure why — wait a second — actually, I am sure why. Most of the times, these people knew someone or heard of someone with the same last name.

Now, LeCompte isn’t too common of a last name so I can see why this might serve as a focal point of interest. I enjoy having an uncommon last name, too. I can be pretty sure when I see or hear it, it’s referring to me. I get to capitalize the "C" which is pretty cool. Telemarketers don’t know how to pronounce or spell it, so that acts as an immediate sort of spam filter.

So, when I get asked about my surname, I like to have a few facts tidbits available:

• Yes, the name is French. No, I have barely any French blood in me.
• What does the name mean? Well, "Le" is "the" in French, that’s easy. "Compte" is another word (hence the capitalization of "C" in my last name). Compte translates to "count" or "account" and is usually associated with banking. Therefore, my last name literally means "The Count" or "The Account." My guess is I had an ancestor who was an accountant. Since last names were derived from the trade a person mastered, this seems to make the most sense.
• No, I don’t like accounting.
• Some people don’t capitalize the "C" in "Lecompte". Why, I don’t know. A guess would be somewhere down the road someone got lazy and didn’t feel like capitalizing it. It probably got recorded on a birth certificate or some other official document as "Lecompte." I’m probably wrong.
• There is a town right in the middle of Louisiana called "Lecompte." An interesting tidbit is that I don’t think it’s named after my ancestors. Wikipedia states the history behind the name: "The town of Lecompte, Louisiana, was named after a famous racehorse owned by the Wells family who lived on a plantation south of the town. The horse’s name was LeComte. He won races at the Fairgrounds racetrack in New Orleans. During the days of the Lecompte High School, the yearbook was named the LeComte with a picture of the racehorse on the first page. When the railroad painted a sign on the side of the train depot years ago a "p" was added to the name and it has been Lecompte ever since."
• Even more interesting history behind the name of the town of Lecompte.
• There is a Lecompte Pie Festival in the town of Lecompte. Yes, I want to go.
• There is a former high school in the town of Lecompte called Old Lecompte High School. It has a tank in front of it.
• There’s a wealth of information about "LeCompte" (with proper spelling and capitalization) at lecompte.net. Apparently, the LeCompte’s had a big presence in Maryland.

That’s all I have for now. I should get more into this and learn to appreciate my ancestry. But for now, this seems to suffice as a good source of tidbits to throw out there.