At birth, the child's name was Napoleone di Buonaparte. When he was a child his family declined using the nobiliary particle di. Though the Buonaparte family belonged to minor nobility, they were financially poor and did not regard themselves as aristocrats. But because it was necessary to belong to a proven noble family to enroll at the military academy at Brienne, in school the child was known as Napoleone de Buonaparte. He gradually adopted a French version of his first name, Napoléon. In 1795, after becoming a general, he dropped the "u" from his last name, making it Bonaparte
