So from the Renaissance forward for several centuries, Europe is big into things from Antiquity and in France it's going to manifest in different ways in a series of waves. So even though we're talking as early as the 1400s in Italy, this dedication to classicism of Greece and Rome is going to be felt for a while. (Dedication especially to Greece thanks to scholars and documents entering Europe following the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks.) And these waves of classicism and hellenophilia are going to show up in different spheres of life from theology to art and architecture to science.

My point here isn't to point to a single cause of the popularity of Greek names but to show that France goes through centuries of appreciation for Antiquity and that their long-held Hellenism keeps showing up in different ways, such that you're going to find people named Theophile in the 1600s and Anacharsis up through the end of the 18th century and the tradition will spill over into the 19th century as you observed.

In France, you're going to see Baroque architecture -- very showy architecture that builds off the classicism of the Renaissance -- start popping up in the 17th Century along with the beginnings of the French Enlightenment with a dedication to science and study that sees France create the French Academy of Sciences in 1666. The Enlightenment right now isn't a part of European fascination with ancient Greece and Rome, but as it leads into the 18th century and begins to attack the foundations of power of the Catholic Church and call for societies built on reason and empiricism, there's a new wave of interest in the old republics both because they're examples of a better way to run society but also because of the unearthing of Pompeii and Herculaneum. And this renewed interest in Greece and Rome manifests in a wave of neoclassical art that adopts the ancient Greek and Roman aesthetics that had driven much of Renaissance-era art. France in particular goes deep on neoclassicism because of French artists who trained under German art historian and Hellenist Johann Winckelmann, and doubles down again come the French Revolution, when neoclassicism idealizes the French desire to live under a better society governed by the liberal ideas of the Enlightenment. Neoclassicist Jacques-Louis David, in particular, is going to be the exemplar of the movement and the single biggest name in French Revolutionary art. Any time David isn't lionizing the heroes of the revolution in his pictures of the Tennis Court Oath or elevating Jean-Paul Marat to the rank of a holy martyr, he's painting idealized neoclassical looks at Greece and Rome.

When France's revolution kicks into high gear and they begin casting off the old ways of society in a big way, especially including Dechristianization, it becomes fashionable for French patriots to shed certain old names and take on new Republican names, many of which are Greek or Latin (though you're certainly not going to see many babies named Theophilus in the god-hostile year of 1793). The remodeled French Republican Calendar would name its months after Latin terms as well.

This isn't a phenomenon unique to France, but even though you'll find classical names throughout Europe during this period, the French Enlightenment and Revolution both boost the atmosphere of classicism and make it a driving cultural current.