| Meaning | From Old French pelletier — furrier, dealer in pelts and furs |
| Origin type | Occupational surname |
| Language origin | Old French pel (skin, hide, pelt) from Latin pellis |
| Regional concentration | Quebec (Canada) — among the most common surnames; also Norman France |
| Estimated frequency | Top 10 most common surnames in Quebec; hundreds of thousands of bearers worldwide |
Pelletier is an occupational surname from the Old French pelletier — a furrier, someone who prepares and sells pelts and furs. The root is the Latin pellis (skin, hide), giving Old French pel and the professional pelletier. In medieval France the fur trade was substantial: furs were luxury goods worn by nobility and wealthy merchants, and the craft guilds of the pelletiers in Paris and the great trading cities ranked among the most prosperous. A family identified as furriers would carry this occupational name into the hereditary surname system.
No surname could be more emblematic of New France than Pelletier. The entire raison d'être of the French colony in North America was, in the seventeenth century, the fur trade — particularly the beaver pelt trade that supplied the European hat-making industry. The coureurs des bois (forest runners) and voyageurs who paddled the canoe routes of the Great Lakes and beyond in pursuit of beaver pelts were the economic engine of New France. The Pelletier families who emigrated from Normandy and other French regions brought their surname — the furrier's name — into a colony where fur was literally the currency of empire.
Several Pelletier families arrived in New France in the seventeenth century and became founding stock for the Quebec Pelletier population. The records of the PRDH show Pelletier households in Quebec City, Beaupré, the Île d'Orléans, and the Trois-Rivières region from the 1660s onward. Like the Tremblays and Gagnons, the Pelletier founding families in New France had large numbers of children, and their descendants multiplied rapidly through the characteristic French-Canadian demographic pattern.
Gérard Pelletier (1919–1997) — Quebec journalist, intellectual, and Liberal politician who served as Secretary of State of Canada under Pierre Trudeau. With Trudeau and Jean Marchand, he was one of the "three doves" who entered federal politics in 1965 to counter Quebec separatism.
Lina Pelletier — Quebec soprano and opera singer.
Jean Pelletier (1934–2009) — Mayor of Quebec City (1977–1989) and Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. A major figure in federal Liberal politics.
The Pelletier diaspora is the Franco-American diaspora of New England, concentrated in the mill towns of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. Like Tremblay and Gagnon, Pelletier families emigrated from Quebec in large numbers in the 1840s–1920s as rural Quebec's agricultural economy could no longer support its growing population. In the textile and shoe factories of Lowell, Fall River, Woonsocket, and Lewiston, Pelletier families built new communities that maintained French-Canadian Catholic identity through the early twentieth century.
The Franco-American Pelletier community contributed significantly to New England's industrial workforce and to the Catholic Church in the region, which built French-language parishes to serve the emigrant communities. Third and fourth generation American Pelletiers are found across New England and the wider United States.
Pelletier genealogy in Quebec uses the same resources as other major Quebec surnames: the PRDH database at the Université de Montréal covers the colonial period comprehensively, and the BAnQ holds all subsequent civil records. The geographic concentration of Pelletier families in the Quebec City region and the Beaupré coast means that the parish records of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Château-Richer, and the Île d'Orléans are particularly relevant.
For Franco-American Pelletier families in New England, the Société Historique Franco-Américaine and US census records from 1880–1940 document the migration. The New England Historic Genealogical Society holds relevant vital records for the mill-town communities. The passport from Quebec to New England for most Pelletier emigrants was the Maine or Vermont border crossing by train in the 1870s–1920s.
Love France is part of the Dream In Miles newsletter network — a daily guide to France's regions, history, food, and the enduring French connection to the world's diaspora.
Read Love France