The town mayor, Alain Legal, told regional news outlet Sud Ouest that ‘Faux’ (which means ‘fake’ or ‘false’ in English) randomly went missing when put into digital files or spreadsheets – after some IT programmes apparently read it as a command, not a name.

“It led to a lot of confusion and errors,” Legal said, explaining that some residents did not receive letters.

On top of that, there is another French town called Faux-la-Montagne in the Creuse département, and sometimes people called the town hall looking to reach the other ‘Faux’ municipality.

The town will become Faux-en-Périgord, referencing the historic region name of south-west France, famed for its production of duck and foie gras.

Faux is one of eight French municipalities which will change their names on January 1st, according to a decree published in France’s Journal Officiel this week.

This is not related to the updating of street names, which happened in June 2024, as that part of a law requiring small communes to allocate formal addresses to houses on the estimated 200,000 or so streets with no name.

The most common reason for a name change is to avoid confusion with other places of the same name.

The municipality of Saint-Christophe-sur-Dolaison in the Haute-Loire département will become Saint-Christophe-sur-Dolaizon.

This is partially for historical reasons, as it was originally spelled with a Z instead of an S, but it is also avoid confusion surrounding the spelling, as the town is located near the Dolaizon river, Le Parisien reported.

In the Seine-et-Marne département – Montcourt-Fromonville – will become Moncourt-Fromonville. This is reportedly to fix the spelling so it matches what inhabitants commonly use (no ‘T’).

Other towns wished to avoid being confused with similar sounding places. In order to do so, the most prudent option seemed to be adding a geographical description to the town’s name.

For example, the town of Rousset in Hautes-Alpes will become Rousset-Serre-Ponçon, to avoid confusion with the Rousset in Bouches-du-Rhône and to reference the nearby lake.

Then there’s Grigny in the Rhône département, which no longer wishes to be mixed up with the Grigny in Essonne. This town will henceforth be known as Grigny-sur-Rhône.

The mayor, Xavier Odo, told Le Parisien that they “regularly receive letters not meant for us (…) the goal is not meant to erase 55 years of Communist history in our town, but rather to recall the 20 centuries of shared life between Grigny and the river”.

The Grigny in Essonne – greater Paris – is well-known as a leftist stronghold, having been held by the Communist party since 1935. Grigny in the Rhône too used to be a Communist-controlled local authority but these days is controlled by the right-wing Les Républicains party. The mayor had faced accusations of trying to erase the area’s working class history and make his commune appear ‘more bourgeois’ with the name change.

As for the three other towns changing their names, they will also add small descriptions to – Roche in the Loire département will become Roche-en-Forez, Le Cheix in the Puy-de-Dôme département will become Le Cheix-sur-Morge, and Le Vigan in the Lot département will become Le Vigan-en-Quercy.