To call my baby Joan?

[SecondChancesAtLife]

What do you think?

I’m 5 months pregnant and having a girl.
Ive just watched “maid of Orleans” video by orchestral manoeuvres in the dark and had a brainwave. Joan as in Joan of Arc.

Classic, moving story/heroine, devout catholic. The name Joan has suddenly taken on new meaning for me!

Joan of Arc was also always my favourite bit in Bill & Teds excellent adventure ❤️

Or am I just suffering from baby brain? Is it awful?

Joan Sims comes to mind, Carry-on Nurse !.

Lots of old names are popular right now - I know a Betty, Nancy, Iris, Mabel and an Esme - but haven't heard of any Joans. I don't know why but I would find it a bit jarring on a child, kind of like when I read that Victoria coren Mitchell and David Mitchell have named their children Barbara and June. They are from the same generation but I feel like they should have been left there.

My Grandma used her middle name, Joan, throughout her life rather than her first name, Mabel, which we were never allowed to mention because it was so ugly and old fashioned :) She was born in 1917, it's fascinating to see how these things cycle round. My middle name is Joan, definitely much better than Mabel! But there are little Mabel's running around again now.

Love it !!

I know a baby called Jean which I love too

I like it, but I also like Audrey so what do I know.

Old fashioned but quite nice. I think it's a name that is due for a come back

I know several young Audrey's. Lovely name

I have Joan and Octavia on my list 😂

I really like Joan - I like strong historical names (hence Octavia…) and it’s also the name of somebody important to my DH who recently passed away so it would be a nice way to honour her. On a more trashy level there was a contestant on America’s Next Top Model when I was a teenager called Joanie and I remember liking the name at the time! Have a strong feeling I’m going to end up using it (either as a first name or middle name).

Joanathan? 😂

I don't see why not, Joan of Arc inspired a lot of people and Joanie as a nn is very cure

My initial reaction was no, but actually it's growing on me.

I'm not a massive fan of the 'old lady names' trend but I think Joan could be an exception to that.

Not forgetting beautiful, iconic, intelligent Dame Joan Bakewell.

It’s growing on me too. Joanie could be sweet. It is very much an older ladies name at the moment but a lot of those are popular again.

Yes, I was going to suggest that.

Poor kid!

I love it

I prefer Joanne personally but I'm not keen on old fashioned names.

Joan is fine, and there's the option of shortening to Jo x

It's awful.

All so true. This is a very good point.

If you like a name and it’s not totally outlandish why not just go for it.

No just no .

I guess I just don’t understand why Joan is so difficult?

It’s a ‘real’/not made up name. It’s been used widely socially and geographically since the Middle Ages. There are a host of famous historical figures ranging from the obvious Joan of Arc (obviously an anglicisation of her name before anybody comes after me) and a host of medieval queens to Joan Collins, Joan Jet, Joan Littlewood to fictional characters (Joan on Mad Men for example). It translates well into other languages (and not into anything rude). It’s easy to spell and pronounce. I get a bit fed up with the idea on here that because a name is associated with older women it’s a negative.

Other than the perception that it’s old fashioned what is ‘difficult’ about it? To my mind a difficult name would be one that has a spelling/pronunciation against the norm that requires constant correction/mix ups with spellings on official forms etc, one that is also a rude/slag word (Fanny for example), one that has intense negative correlations (for example I struggle to think of a famous Myra other than Hindley…), one that expresses a clear character/physical trait that an individual may lack (Adonis) etc etc.

I agree that you need to think of how the name works beyond being a cute baby but there’s a limit to how much you control. I have what I think is a relatively normal name although not top 100 when I was born. It’s actually becoming more popular looking at current rankings. It still gets misspelled/pronounced at times (including to a male name) and I could never get pens etc with my name on at gift shops (I’ll admit that did bother me as a child…). I also have a surname that’s a variant on the more common spelling so frequently have to correct forms etc. But that’s just life. Even a name like ‘Sarah Smith’ could have multiple spellings or your child could struggle with their ‘S’s’ (I had a minor speech impediment as a child but luckily my name wasn’t something I had an issue with).

Ivy, Elsie, Evelyn, Violet, Iris, Margot were all considered old fashioned but are rapidly climbing the charts (if not within the top 20). Joan has the ‘cutesy’ variant of Joanie which fits with the current trend for ‘-ie’ names that are incredibly popular. It may well be that this Joan will be ahead of the curve as it comes back into fashion (I’m sure if you look back on here the first people considering Ivy, Elsie etc would have been told it was old fashioned, now the advice is it’s too popular!).

Ivy, Elsie, Evelyn, Violet, Iris, Margot were all considered old fashioned but are rapidly climbing the charts

Yes. And name perception is so prone to nudges. I bet the objectors would change their minds if a super glamorous actress or singer called Joan hits the big time. Nobody would associate Margot with Margot Leadbetter now, it would be Margot Robbie.

Yeah. I've changed my mind. Hearing it in my head and reading it here over and over it's become more pleasant. Familiarity.

Joan. Hi, I'm Joan. Nice to meet you, I'm Joan.

Yeah. It's fine

It's beautiful and strong. Where I work, there are two Joans both in their early 20s - really cool, quirky, hipster types. I was a bit surprised to meet both of them at first as it seemed such an old fashioned name which hasn't quite come back - and seemed to be an especially brave choice for the parents of their generation to make, but now I love the name and a lot of it is to do with association with these women at work.

If I were at that stage now, I'd definitely consider Joan as a girl's name.