What’s the proper spelling of Mont Tremblant? Or is it Mont Tremblanc?

The original name given by the region’s first settlers was “Manitonga Soutana”, which actually means “trembing mountain”, referring to the Algonquin legend of the wilderness God (Great Manitou) who caused the mountain to tremble. The translation carried from Algonquin to French, but didn’t quite make it as far as English - not that “Trembling Mountain” has the greatest ring to it anyway. With French as the language of the region, other languages do what they can to adapt to the “original name” - Mont Tremblant.

Before even starting with translation, though, there are already variations to clarify. What’s the difference between Mont Tremblant and Mont-Tremblant? For those unfamiliar with French nomenclature standards, hyphens appear most often in regional names. So, while Mont Tremblant may be the accurate name for the mountain, if you want to refer to the village/resort area and the mountain, the regional Mont-Tremblant would be your best bet.
Keeping “Tremblant” as the main given name, some English speakers will refer to it as Mount Tremblant, resulting in a kind of half translation. Given that “Tremblant” isn’t not the name of a person (and actually has a translation), Mount Tremblant exists as an odd hybrid. The likeliest culprits for its use are English speakers who don’t know what “Tremblant” means, or know that it can be translated at all.

Things brings us to the most peculiar variation: Mont Tremblanc!

It seems like an innovative, or confused, but ultimately compromising attempt to make sense of the French name. See, one of the difficult parts in understanding another language is knowing where to parse words - knowing where each word begins and ends. A person not knowing what “tremblant” means might hear the more likely familiar “-blant” sound, which is phonetically identical to “blanc”, French for “white”. The colour is fairly suited to snowy slopes, and actually appears independently in the names of other mountains like the Mont Blanc in France, but most notably in the name of Mont Blanc ski resort, also located in Quebec.

So, remember: white as Tremblant may be, don’t change the “t” for a “c”!