Daily Ancestordit
Dit, meaning "called", links a French Canadian family's surname to its alternate surname, as in Gagnepain dit Lavallée.
Dit and the female form dite are past participles of dire, to say. A dit name was a second surname carried by a family, common in the 1600s and 1700s in New France and also used in Louisiana. Either name, or both, may appear in different records for the same person.
Dit names came from a trait, a place of origin, a trade or a soldier's nickname, and they carried the same legal weight as the original surname. Some children kept one name and some the other, so search under both.
Look it up: old jobs, causes of death, Latin, abbreviations, nicknames and more.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "dit." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/french/dit. Last checked 2026-10-28.