Women’s place in the toponymy of French swimming pools (1969-2021)

Based on a corpus of 2,770 swimming pools, this study aims to describe and then analyze—drawing on the national file of sports equipment, directories of swimming pools, and archives of municipal services—women’s place in the toponymy of French public swimming pools (names assigned between 1969 and 2021). Based on a decision-making process dominated by men, elected officials have preferred, since the late 1960s, to select male rather than female anthroponyms to name swimming pools. Since 1995, among female anthroponyms, there has been a growing preference for sportswomen. Female politicians or women in power in sports are underrepresented. Since the 2000s, there has been a significant increase in the use of female theonyms and hagionyms to name recent swimming pools that offer a range of facilities for well-being, self-care, leisure, and sport. The heroines of the world wars are the great forgotten of the French aquatic pantheon.