Introduction
Marie Curie, or Maria Salomea Skłodowska, or Marie Skłodowska-Curie, or… Well, you get it. One of the most famous scientists of all times, only winner of two Nobel prices in two different scientific fields. But when I find people online talking about her, it is mostly to debate how to write her name. I often read some interactions like this one:
“Hey, here is an interesting fact about Marie Curie!”
“Hmm actually it is Maria Skłodowska.”
“No, she used both her Polish and French names, so it is Maria Skłodowska-Curie.”
“Is it Marie or Maria?”
So what is the correct answer? In fact… all of it is correct. Marie Curie – I will call her Marie Curie in the rest of this post to keep it simple – did use all of these names, depending of the period (she obviously did not use the Curie surname before her marriage with Pierre Curie), who she was addressing to (French or Polish friends or colleagues), and the nature of the document (letters, books, scientific publications…). So let’s review a bit of documents signed by Marie Curie.
French Science Academy
Marie Curie published several notes in the Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences or in short the Comptes rendus, the proceedings of the French Academy of Sciences. I decided to start with these documents for different reasons: they cover a long period of time (from 1897 to 1925), they are numerous, they are easily available, and they are written in French, my native language.
What I learned after reading all the notes signed by Marie Curie is that the way she was credited was not constant at all: sometimes her Polish name was used, sometimes not. Her first name was almost never used, even though the initial of her husband first name was sometimes used. The two constants appear to be the use of the “Curie” surname and the “Mme” title. Let’s dig more into the details.
In volume 125 of the Comptes rendus (1897), she published a note where she is credited as “Mme Sklodowska Curie” in the main text [link] and “Sklodowska-Curie (Mme)” in the authors table [link]. She thus used both her birth and marriage names. Interestingly, she did not use her first name, using “Mme”, the French equivalent of “Mrs”, when most other scientists used their first name or at least its first letter. It is hard to tell whether it was her choice or a constraint, but it is found constant over the years in the Comptes rendus.
In volume 126 (1898), she published her second note. Here again, she was credited as “Mme Sklodowska Curie” in the main text [link] and “Sklodoswka-Curie (Mme)” in the authors table [link].
In volume 127 (1898), she is credited in a note with her husband Pierre. She is credited as “Mme S. Curie” in the main text [link]. She thus reduced her Polish name to its first letter, “S”. Strangely, in the same volume of the Comptes rendus, they published another note of similar title. In this note, she is credited as “Mme P. Curie”, using the first letter of her husband’s first name [link]. At this time, in France, it was not rare for a married woman to sign under the name of her husband, and Marie Curie did it in several documents. In the table authors of this volume, she is credited as “Curie (Mme S.)” [link]. In the same volume, a note states that she won the Gegner award for her work on the magnetic properties of iron and steel. In this note, she is named “Mme Curie” [link]. When addressing her thanks for the award, she is also credited as “Mme Curie” [link].
In volume 129 (1899), she is credited in three notes of the Comptes rendus. In the first one, she is named “Mme M.-P. Curie”, using the first letters of both her husband’s name and her own name [link]. In the second one, she is credited under the name “Mme Sklodowska Curie” [link], and in the third one she is called “Mme Curie” [link]. Three notes for three different credentials! In the authors table, she is named “Curie (Mme P.)” [link].
In volume 130 (1900), she is credited in two notes. In the first one, she is credited as “Mme Sklodowska-Curie” [link] and in the second one she is credited as “Mme M. P. Curie” [link]. In the authors table, she is credited as “Curie (Mme Sklodowska)” [link].
In volume 131 (1900), she is credited as “Mme Curie” [link], matching the author table crediting her as “Curie (Mme)” [link]. As in volume 127, she won the Gegner award in this volume and is credited as “Mme Curie” [link]. It is not so often that her name is kept consistent throughout a volume!
In volume 134 (1902), she is credited as “Mme S. Curie” in a note published with her husband [link]. In the authors table, she is credited as “Curie (Mme S.)” [link].
In volume 135 (1902), she is credited in her note as “Mme Curie” [link]. In the authors table, she is named “Curie (Mme)” [link]. Once again, she won the Gegner award as “Mme Curie” [link], but she also won the Berthelot award under the name “Mme Curie” [link]. She then addressed her thanks to the Academy as “Mme Curie” [link].
In volume 142 (1906), she is credited as “Mme Curie” [link]. In the authors table, she is named “Curie (Mme)” [link]. Interesting trivia: in this volume, the death of her husband Pierre is announced to the Academy.
In volume 145 (1907), she published three notes. In the first “Mme Curie” [link], as she is in the second [link] and third [link]. In the authors table, she is credited as “Curie (Mme)” [link].
In volume 147 (1908), she published two notes under the name “Mme Curie” for both the first [link] and the second [link]. The authors table has her under the name “Curie (Mme)” [link].
In volume 150 (1910), she is credited as “Mme P. Curie” [link]. It has been a long time since she was credited under another name than “Mme Curie”. In the authors table, her name is “Curie (Mme P.)” [link].
In volume 151 (1910), she is credited under the name “Mme P. Curie” as in the previous volume [link]. The authors table credits her as “Curie (Mme)”, droping the “P.” [link].
In volume 172 (1921), she is again credited as “Mme P. Curie” [link]. In the authors table, she is credited as “Curie (Mme Pierre)”, referring to the full first name of her late husband [link].
In volume 180 (1925), in her last note in the Comptes rendus, she is name “Mme Pierre Curie” [link]. In the authors table, she is “Curie (Mme Pierre)” [link].
And that is all for the Comptes rendus. What can we infer from all this information? First, we see that when her Polish name is used, it is without the character “ł”, simply replaced with an “l”. My guess is that there is nothing more in this than a technical limitation of the period in France. Next, we see that references of her Polish name, either as “Sklodowska” or simply “S.” become rare as years pass. But it is hard to identify a general pattern in how she is credited.
Now, I am not sure that credits were given as asked by the authors themselves. It is possible that the secretaries of the Comptes rendus were in charge of giving credits, explaining the variety of names under which Marie Curie was credited. Also, most of the times the notes of Marie Curie were presented to the Academy by someone else than her, so it is possible that these persons (changing from note to note) chose under which name to present her work. But note that even in the notes she presented herself (v. 145, 147, 151, 180) she used different credits.
In conclusion, while interesting, it is hard to firmly understand how Marie Curie used her name. But it seems that as time passed her Polish name disappeared, and that she was still referred under her husband name after he passed.
Civil documents
A good thing with famous people dead long ago (but not too long ago) is that there are a lot of documents available online with information about them. I thus managed to find the birth certificate of Marie Curie [link]. My skills in deciphering hand-written Polish texts from the mid-19th century are pretty low, but it appears that her parents chose “Marya Solomea” as her birth names (Figure 1).
A few lines later, it appears that she is named “Marya Skłodowska”, showing her first name and family name (Figure 2)
The marriage certificate of Pierre and Marie Curie can also be easily accessed [link]. Unfortunately, it is not written in this document which name she legally took after marrying Pierre. We only know that in the document she is named “Marie Solomée Sklodowska”, using a French version of her Polish name “Maria Solomea” (Figure 3).
Note that, even if the text was written by hand, the “ł” was replaced in her name with the letter “l”. She herself signed the document as “M. Sklodowska” (Figure 4).
Funnily, I also found the wedding banns of Marie and Pierre Curie, and it appears that her name was wrongly written [link]. She was thus named “Marie Salomée Klodowska”, dropping the “S” at the beginning of her name (Figure 5).
Note that the bans of Pierre Curie are also available [link]. On these, the name “Marie Salomée Sklodowska” is written without error (Figure 6).
Finally, I also found her death certificate [link]. In this document, she is named… “Marie Salomé Sklodowska” (Figure 7). With an error in her second name, which should be written “Salomée” in its French version.
Books and thesis
For now, we have reviewed documents that we cannot be sure Marie Curie signed herself (Comptes rendus) and documents we are sure she did not sign (birth and death certificate). In this third part and in the next, I would like to review some documents that she wrote, signed and sometimes, published.
The first document, probably one of the most important of her career, is her doctorate thesis. Simply entitled Research on the radioactive substances, she defended it in 1903 and signed it “Mme Sklodowska Curie” [link]. She also published some books, mostly about her field of research: radioactivity. In La Radiologie et La Guerre (1921), she signed as “Mme Pierre Curie” [link]. In The Discovery of Radium (1921), she signed as “Madame M. Curie” [link]
In the English translation of the biography of her late husband that she wrote, Pierre Curie (1923), she is credited as “Marie Curie” [link].
Letters
Marie Curie wrote a ton of letters to a large public of friends, family and colleagues, in France and other countries. Many of these letters are available on archive sites, but unfortunately it is mostly French letters. It is thus hard, from the archives I review below, to really get an understanding of how the nationality of who she wrote to had an impact on how she signed. Moreover, most of the letters I recovered are addressed from or to her family, while I hoped I would be able to recover more letters from and to colleagues and peers.
French letters
Because her family and most of her colleagues were French, most of the letters Marie Curie wrote during her life were written in French, and she used multiple signatures depending on who she was writing to. For example, in one letter to Alexander Graham Bell written in 1903, she signed “M. Curie” [link].
The “Archives et manuscrits” departments of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Bnf) digitized some of the personal correspondence of Marie Curie under the archive number NAF 28138 [link]. This archive is divided in three sub-units: the letters to and from her family from 1905 to September 1914 (NAF 28138 (1)), the letters to and from her family from October 1914 to May 1934 (NAF 28138 (2)), and her letters to Eugénie Cotton (born Feytis) and Isabelle Chavannes (NAF 28138 (3)). I reviewed both the NAF 28138 (1) and NAF 28138 (3) archives, letting behind the NAF 28138 (2) one. The reason behind it is that I already reviewed 200+ family letters in the NAF 28138 (1) archive and did not have the time nor the motivation to review another set of 200+ letters from the NAF 28138 (2) archive.
In the letters addressed to her family, it is obvious that she did not sign with something as formal as “Marie Curie” or “Mme Skłodowska-Curie”. But it is still interesting to learn how she was referred to by her family and how she signed her letters to them. In the NAF 28138 (1) archive, most of the letters are from Irène Curie, her daughter. We discover that Irène mostly referred to her mother as “Mé” in her young years, switching to “Ma chérie” when she grew older (Table 1). Ève, the other daughter of Marie Curie, also wrote some letters, always (in the set of letters I reviewed) referring to her as “Mé” (Table 1).
Note that, in this review, I focused on how people greeted Marie Curie at the beginning of the letters. I did not extensively searched how people referred to her in the main text of the letters. Nevertheless, I noticed that even after she started to use “Ma chérie” in most of her letters, Irène continued to name her mother “Mé” in the body of her letters [link] [link].
I also did not formerly analyzed the addresses on envelops and postcards, but I noticed that she is often named “Mme Curie” or “Mme Marie Curie”. More rarely, she is named “Madame Pierre Curie” [link], “Me P. Curie” [link] or “Me Pierre Curie” [link] [link]. Interestingly, I saw one letter from Irène to Marie with the name “Me Marie Skłodowska” (with the correct “ł”) [link] and three others with “Me Skłodowska” [link] [link] [link].
When Marie Curie wrote to her daughters, she had two ways to sign. She either used “Mé”, as her daughters called her, or “Ta mère” (“Your mother”) (Table 1).
| From | To | Name for Marie Curie | Link(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Irène Curie | Marie Curie | Mé (with variable affectionate adjectives) | [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link1] [link1] [link] [link1] |
| Irène Curie | Marie Curie | Chérie (with variable affectionate adjectives or just “Ma”) | [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link2] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] |
| Eve Curie | Marie Curie | Mé | [link] [link] [link] [link] |
| Marie Curie | Irène Curie | Mé | [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] |
| Marie Curie | Irène Curie | Ta mère | [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link3] [link3] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] |
| Marie Curie | Irène Curie | M. | [link4] |
| Marie Curie | Eve Curie | Mé | [link] |
| Isabelle Chavannes | Marie Curie | Chère Madame | [link] |
1 “Ma douce Mé chérie”.
2 Not signed but we can guess the letter is from Irène.
3 Addressed to both Irène and Eve and signed “Votre mère”.
4 Could be “Mé”, it is possible that I misread the signature.
In the NAF 28138 (3) archive, Marie Curie wrote to two students, colleagues and friends of hers: Eugénie Cotton (born Feytis) and Isabelle Chavannes. In these 30 letters, she always signed as “M. Curie”, where “M.” stands for “Marie” (Table 2).
| From | To | Name for Marie Curie | Link(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marie Curie | Eugénie Feytis | M. Curie | [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] |
| Marie Curie | Isabelle Chavannes | M. Curie | [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] |
English letters
Unfortunately, I found only a few letters from Marie Curie written in English. We know that she exchanged 32 letters with Albert Einstein, but I could not access to any written by Curie. These letters have been published by the “Muzeum Marii Skłodowskiej-Curie w Warszawie” but I could not access the book, and I am not sure that the letters wouldn’t be translated to Polish [link].
Polish letters
I managed to find two letters from Marie Curie written in Polish. One is addressed to a friend of hers, where she announce that she will not be able to visit her in Switzerland because she has to go to Stockholm to get her second Nobel price. In this document, she signs as “M. Curie” [link]. The other letter is addressed to Jan Moszczeńskiego, president of the Polish comity of New York. In this letter, she signs as “M. Skłodowska Curie” [link].
Conclusion
In conclusion, how to credit Marie Curie ? There is… no good answer. Even when she was alive, she used different ways to sign her name – and other people also appear to have used different names for her. All of my research can be summarized by this quote from the Musée Curie [link]:
“She sign her letters to her family and friends as ‘Marie Curie’. According to the customs of her time, in scientific publications and other official documents, she most often signs as ‘Madame Pierre Curie’. It is only when she writes to Poles or Russians that she adds her maiden name, signing Marie, or Mania, or Marya Skłodowska Curie”.
Interestingly, I found a collection of press articles about Marie Curie from multiple countries (Belgium, Germany, France, Poland…). How they name her highly depends on the nationality of the journal [link]. Thus, it seems that the question of her name may greatly be a question of national pride.
Finally, it appears that calling her “Marie Curie” is as valid as calling her “Maria Skłodowska-Curie” or any derivative of that. The scientist herself did not cling to one name.