Abstract

To account for the onomastic interest of Geoffroy de Monmouth and Wace in the "Historia Regum Britanniae" and the "Roman de Brut", especially concerning toponyms, one can run the risk of anachronism and speak of a real theory of the proper name. Their toponymic reflection is less interested in what might refer to an essentialized origin of the name than to what is downstream, to changes brought about by the passage of time. Their perspective as chroniclers who evolve in a multilingual environment makes them sensitive, especially at Wace, to linguistic variability. A genealogy is established between these two works and Chrétien de Troyes' Erec and Énide through the list of guests to Arthur's coronation to which he echoes with the episode of Enide's reception at the court of Arthur and with the celebrations of their marriage. In a more obvious way than Geoffroy and Wace who are limited by their essentially historical perspective, Chrétien deploys an onomastic imaginary that allows him to assert the literarity proper to catalogues.