Why is the inventor of cinema called Louis Le Prince instead of Augustin Le Prince?

In the eight years I researched Light and Shadow I never came across Le Prince being referred to as Louis during his lifetime. His full name was Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, but neither his family nor friends ever referred to him as other than Augustin, or sometimes "Gus" (short for Augustin).

He never called himself Louis either. His letters to his wife Lizzie and family ended with his French "ton Augustin" (your Augustin), or if signing an important document, such as a patent application, it was "Augustin Le Prince" or "A. Le Prince."

Lizzie's memoir, written a couple of decades after his disappearance, is titled "The Life History of Augustin Le Prince: Inventor of Moving Pictures", so we can see that the "Louis" did not originate with her, either.

Another interesting fact about those of us who are sticklers for accuracy, his family name, as shown on his birth certificate, is actually one word, "Leprince". It was only after he moved to New York in 1881 that his name suddenly begins appearing as Le Prince, in two words.

I deliberately referred to him as Augustin in Light and Shadow because I felt it was important to his character. I've always been somewhat obsessed with people being called by their proper names (or at least whatever they prefer to be called). I find it absurd that if a parent puts the name "James" on their infant's birth certificate that from day one they call him Jimmy. Why not just put "Jimmy" on the birth certificate in the first place? It's as annoying as when people can't be bothered to write out "you" when texting, instead using the appalling "u", as if they can't be bothered to write the two extra letters. Harrumph!

But I digress. I have come up with no reasonable explanation for the name discrepancy, other than because he was not known widely during his lifetime. So, as people in the decades after his disappearance began to learn something about him, they likely just looked at his legal name and assumed he was called Louis. If anyone can enlighten me as to why he is not called Augustin, please drop me a line and let me know.

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