Carrère

Carrère is a French surname, often seen with the diacritic on the final e. It is a variant of Carrière, an occupational surname rooted in the Old French term carrière, meaning quarry or quarrying. The name likely originated as a descriptor for someone who worked in or lived near a quarry, and it later spread through regional populations via migration. In modern France, Carrère is most commonly found in the southwest, but it also appears in other regions and in Francophone communities abroad.

Notable people with the surname include Emmanuel Carrère (born 1957), a French author and journalist known for works that blend memoir, reportage, and fiction, such as The Adversary. Another prominent bearer is Marie-Hélène Carrère d'Encausse (born 1945), a French historian and political scientist who has served as the perpetual secretary of the Académie française since 1999. The name also appears in compound forms, such as Carrère d’Encausse, reflecting family or marital name combinations.

Variants of the name include Carrière, as well as other regional spellings that arise from pronunciation and orthographic differences across France and Francophone regions. The surname Carrère, in its various forms, remains an indicator of French linguistic and occupational heritage, and it continues to be encountered in contemporary cultural and scholarly contexts. See also Carrière for related spellings and disambiguation.

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