When asking Monsieur Madeleine (Valjean) for work, Fantine gives her surname as "Tholomyès." Tholomyès was the family name of Félix Tholomyès, Fantine's former lover and Cosette's father. Fantine actually has no family name. In the original novel, it is explained that she herself was an orphan (much as her own daughter would become) who never knew her parents and grew up in the street, and even the name Fantine was assumed, as she did not know her birth name.