How popular is the baby name Joan in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Joan.

The graph will take a few moments to load. (Don't worry, it shouldn't take 9 months!) If it's taking too long, try reloading the page.


Popularity of the baby name Joan


Posts that mention the name Joan

Popular baby names in Ireland, 2022

Flag of Ireland
Flag of Ireland

The island of Ireland, located in the North Atlantic Ocean, happens to be the third-largest island in Europe (after Great Britain and Iceland).

Last year, the Republic of Ireland — which covers five-sixths of the island — welcomed over 57,000 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Emily and Jack.

Here are Ireland’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2022:

Girl Names

  1. Emily, 349 baby girls
  2. Grace, 342
  3. Fiadh, 320 – pronounced FEE-a
  4. Sophie, 292
  5. Lily, 291
  6. Éabha, 271 – pronounced EY-va
  7. Ava, 269
  8. Mia, 262
  9. Ellie, 259
  10. Olivia, 258
  11. Amelia, 250 (tie)
  12. Emma, 250 (tie)
  13. Hannah, 248
  14. Ella, 240
  15. Freya, 234
  16. Lucy, 232
  17. Isla, 228
  18. Saoirse, 212 – pronounced SEER-sha or SAYR-sha
  19. Millie, 206
  20. Sadie, 201
  21. Sophia, 200
  22. Molly, 195
  23. Chloe, 191
  24. Caoimhe, 190 – pronounced KEE-va or KWEE-va
  25. Anna, 186
  26. Evie, 181
  27. Isabelle, 178
  28. Robyn, 177
  29. Alice, 160
  30. Aoife, 158 – pronounced EE-fa
  31. Róisín, 157 – pronounced ROH-sheen
  32. Sadhbh, 153 – pronounced siev (rhymes with the number “five”).
  33. Cara, 152
  34. Katie, 151
  35. Erin, 150
  36. Kate, 147
  37. Willow, 145
  38. Croía, 140 (3-way tie) – pronounced KREE-a
  39. Ruby, 140 (3-way tie)
  40. Sofia, 140 (3-way tie)
  41. Bonnie, 135
  42. Holly, 129 (tie)
  43. Zoe, 129 (tie)
  44. Sienna, 126
  45. Isabella, 125 (tie)
  46. Maya, 125 (tie)
  47. Sarah, 121
  48. Ada, 119
  49. Rosie, 111
  50. Leah, 109

Boy Names

  1. Jack, 641 baby boys
  2. Noah, 485
  3. James, 412
  4. Rían, 372
  5. Charlie, 348
  6. Oisín, 340 – pronounced UH-sheen or OH-sheen
  7. Tadhg, 324 – pronounced tieg (like the first three letters of “tiger”)
  8. Liam, 323
  9. Cillian, 316 – pronounced KIL-ee-an
  10. Daniel, 303
  11. Fionn, 287
  12. Michael, 278
  13. Conor, 275
  14. Finn, 269
  15. Patrick, 250
  16. Thomas, 246
  17. Darragh, 245
  18. Harry, 242
  19. Seán, 239
  20. Luke, 233
  21. Theo, 232
  22. Adam, 230
  23. Leo, 225
  24. Alex, 216
  25. Oliver, 201
  26. Ryan, 190
  27. Max, 189
  28. Cian, 185 – pronounced KEE-an or keen
  29. Tommy, 184
  30. Luca, 179
  31. Bobby, 170
  32. Mason, 167
  33. Dylan, 163 (3-way tie)
  34. Jamie, 163 (3-way tie)
  35. Kai, 163 (3-way tie)
  36. John, 160
  37. Ollie, 159
  38. Oscar, 156
  39. Shay, 152
  40. Alexander, 149 (tie)
  41. Ben, 149 (tie)
  42. Matthew, 146
  43. David, 143 (tie)
  44. Tom, 143 (tie)
  45. Ethan, 141
  46. Donnacha, 140 – pronounced DUN-uh-ka or DUN-uh-kha (the kh represents a guttural H-sound)
  47. Alfie, 139
  48. Jacob, 131
  49. Billy, 128
  50. Sam, 125

New to the girls’ top 100 were the names Hailey, Phoebe, Ayda, and Éala.

New to the boys’ top 100 were the names Blake and Cody.

The fastest-rising names in the top 100 in terms of numbers of babies were:

  • Millie (+58 baby girls), Olivia (+39), Éala (+32), Ellie (+31), Isabelle (+31)
  • Luca (+58 baby boys), Oisín (+38), Leo (+33), Kai (+33), Tomás (+30)

The fastest-rising names in terms of rank were:

  • Éala (+86 places), Phoebe (+45), Mary (+40), Hailey (+38), Ayda (+29)
  • Tomás (+42 places), Anthony (+31), Christopher (+29), Joey (+25), Kayden (+25)
Map of the four provinces of Ireland
Ireland’s four provinces

Home to more than five million people, the Republic of Ireland is divided into four provinces. (One of these provinces, Ulster, lies largely within Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.) The top baby names within each of the four provinces last year were…

Top Girl NameTop Boy Name
Leinster
(56% of the population)		EmilyJack
Munster
(27% of pop.)		EmilyJack
Connacht
(11% of pop.)		ÉabhaJack
Ulster [ROI portion]
(6% of pop.)		GraceJack

And what about the names at the other end of the spectrum? The following were given to just 3 babies each in Ireland last year:

Rare Girl NamesRare Boy Names
Ananya, Beatriz, Cliona, Dina, Eilidh, Faela, Fianna, Isadora, Joan, Khadija, Líadh, Luisne, Miruna, Morrigan, Nala, Orlagh, Prunelle, Réiltín, Saffie, Scotia, Tilda, Vamika, ZohaAilbe, Brooklyn, Caoilte, Denzel, Eamonn, Féidhlim, Geoffrey, Henrik, Isa, Josiah, Kamal, Lúan, Manus, Nilan, Ógie, Pio, Rokas, Séadhna, Tiernán, Viraj, Wayne, Yousuf, Zoraiz

Finally, here are Ireland’s 2021 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing more Irish name pronunciations, just click that link.

Sources: Irish Babies’ Names – CSO (Irish Babies’ Names 2022), Births, Deaths and Marriages – CSO (Vital Statistics Yearly Summary 2022), Data – CSO, Provinces of Ireland – Wikipedia

Image: Adapted from Flag of Ireland (public domain)
Map: Adapted from Provinces of Ireland location map by Ssolbergj under CC BY-SA 4.0.

[Latest update: Feb. 2024]

What gave the baby name Clarissa a boost in the early 1990s?

The character Clarissa Darling from the TV series "Clarissa Explains It All" (1991-1994)
Clarissa Darling from “Clarissa Explains It All“

The baby name Clarissa had already been on the rise for several decades when, in 1992, usage increased more sharply than usual. Several years later, the name reached peak popularity:

  • 1997: 1,091 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 266th]
  • 1996: 1,157 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 241st]
  • 1995: 1,201 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 239th] – peak usage
  • 1994: 1,185 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 237th] – peak ranking
  • 1993: 1,074 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 258th]
  • 1992: 1,141 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 244th]
  • 1991: 909 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 305th]
  • 1990: 853 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 322nd]
  • 1989: 759 baby girls named Clarissa [rank: 335th]

Here’s a visual:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Clarissa in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Clarissa

What accounts for this?

My guess is the TV series Clarissa Explains it All, which aired on Nickelodeon from early 1991 to late 1994.

The show’s main character was witty teenager Clarissa Darling (played by Melissa Joan Hart), who frequently broke the fourth wall — speaking directly to viewers about the things that were going on in her life and how she felt about them.

Two other memorable characters were Clarissa’s obnoxious younger brother Ferguson (who was a Republican, just like Alex P. Keaton of Family Ties) and her best friend Sam (who always climbed a ladder up to Clarissa’s second-story bedroom window).

Interestingly, Clarissa introduces herself in the very first episode of the series with some commentary about her name:

Hi, I’m Clarissa. Clarissa Darling. Ok, I didn’t choose the name. I wanted Jade. But by that time, it was too late already.

Anything without a last name would be better, like, Martika. Or Madonna would have been great. But no one asked me.

The name Clarissa is based on the name Clara, which is derived from the Latin word clarus, meaning “bright, clear.”

What are your thoughts on Clarissa?

(And, if we pretend for a second that the sitcom never happened, do you think the usage of Clarissa would have kept rising past the mid-1990s? If so, how high do you think the name could have climbed in the rankings?)

Sources: Clarissa Explains It All – Wikipedia, Clara – Wiktionary, SSA

P.S. Another early ’90s prime-time TV show that featured a quirky teenage girl (with an equally quirky sense of fashion) was Blossom.

Name quotes #116: Joan, Algernon, Quintana

double quotation mark

From a recent Palladium-Time article about 19th-century medical doctor Algernon Sidney Coe:

Born on a farm on Sept. 18, 1828, in Norway, New York, Algernon Sidney Coe defied all expectations to become a respected and admired physician in Oswego City.

Coe, the son of Ira Coe, a War of 1812 veteran, and Elizabeth Norton, was named after Algernon Sidney who was executed in 1683 in England for his outspoken views on freedom of speech. Sidney was considered a martyr by American thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

From the 2015 essay “What’s in a Necronym?” by Jeannie Vanasco:

I remember the day I first learned about her. I was eight. My father was in his chair, holding a small white box. As my mother explained that he had a dead daughter named Jeanne, pronounced the same as my name, “without an i,” he opened the box and looked away. Inside was a medal Jeanne had received from a church “for being a good person,” my mother said. My father said nothing. I said nothing. I stared at the medal.

[…]

Parsed from the Greek, necronym literally translates as “death name.” It usually means a name shared with a dead sibling. Until the late nineteenth century, necronyms were not uncommon among Americans and Europeans. If a child died in infancy, his or her name was often given to the next child, a natural consequence of high birth rates and high infant mortality rates.

[Another necronym: Notwithstanding Griswold, born in 1764, was named for her deceased older sister.]

From the Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. page of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park website:

Thomas Alva, Junior, was born on January 10, 1876. Since his sister Marion was nicknamed “Dot,” he was nicknamed “Dash.”

[…]

After selling the use of his name to advertise “quack” medicines and dubious inventions, his father asked Tom Junior to change his name. This he did, briefly going by the name of Thomas Willard.

[The nicknames “Dot” and “Dash” are references to Morse Code.]

From a PBS NewsHour interview with a man named Normandy Villa, Jr.:

To understand what’s going on here, you should know two things: first, even though the family comes from Colombia, Normandy is named after one of the more important moments in American history:

NORMANDY VILLA: “The Battle of Normandy in France, in 1941 was the beginning of the liberation of Europe, and my grandfather saw that as such a powerful moment in history, that he wanted to have his family carry a name that referred to a new dawn. And so, the first born in the family received the name Normandy.”

From an NPR review of Joan Didion’s book Blue Nights (2011):

Just after they adopted Quintana Roo (they’d seen the name on a map of Mexico, liked it, and chosen it) the writer says she acted as if she’d gotten a doll to dress up, not a real baby.

For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.

Popular baby names in the Faroe Islands, 2021

Flag of the Faroe Islands
Flag of the Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands, which are part of the kingdom of Denmark, are a North Atlantic archipelago located between Iceland and Scotland‘s Shetland Islands.

Last year, the Faroes welcomed 683 babies — 327 girls and 356 boys.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Lea/Lív (tie) and Jónas.

Here are the Faroe Islands’ top 20+ girl names and top 30+ boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Lea, 7 baby girls (tie)
  2. Lív, 7 (tie)
  3. Emma, 5 (4-way tie)
  4. Julia, 5 (4-way tie)
  5. Ria, 5 (4-way tie)
  6. Sólja, 5 (4-way tie)
  7. Hjørdis, 4 (6-way tie)
  8. Isabella, 4 (6-way tie)
  9. Nora, 4 (6-way tie)
  10. Ronja, 4 (6-way tie)
  11. Sofía, 4 (6-way tie)
  12. Vár, 4 (6-way tie)
  13. Alda, 3 (13-way tie)
  14. Amalia, 3 (13-way tie)
  15. Ann, 3 (13-way tie)
  16. Anna, 3 (13-way tie)
  17. Bára, 3 (13-way tie)
  18. Eva, 3 (13-way tie)
  19. Eyð, 3 (13-way tie)
  20. Joan, 3 (13-way tie)
  21. Klara, 3 (13-way tie)
  22. Liva, 3 (13-way tie)
  23. Maria, 3 (13-way tie)
  24. Olivia, 3 (13-way tie)
  25. Petra, 3 (13-way tie)

Boy Names

  1. Jónas, 10 baby boys
  2. Nóa, 9
  3. Andrias, 6 (4-way tie)
  4. Jógvan, 6 (4-way tie)
  5. Markus, 6 (4-way tie)
  6. Mattias, 6 (4-way tie)
  7. Adrian, 5 (4-way tie)
  8. Gilli, 5 (4-way tie)
  9. Jákup, 5 (4-way tie)
  10. Tróndur, 5 (4-way tie)
  11. Bragi, 4 (9-way tie)
  12. Brandur, 4 (9-way tie)
  13. Brimir, 4 (9-way tie)
  14. Hjalti, 4 (9-way tie)
  15. Jóhan, 4 (9-way tie)
  16. Liam, 4 (9-way tie)
  17. Ólavur, 4 (9-way tie)
  18. Óli, 4 (9-way tie)
  19. Ragnar, 4 (9-way tie)
  20. Áki, 3 (14-way tie)
  21. Benjamin, 3 (14-way tie)
  22. Dávid, 3 (14-way tie)
  23. Elias, 3 (14-way tie)
  24. Filip, 3 (14-way tie)
  25. Hans, 3 (14-way tie)
  26. Jens, 3 (14-way tie)
  27. Jóel, 3 (14-way tie)
  28. Jón, 3 (14-way tie)
  29. Kári, 3 (14-way tie)
  30. Leon, 3 (14-way tie)
  31. Silas, 3 (14-way tie)
  32. Teitur, 3 (14-way tie)
  33. Uni, 3 (14-way tie)

Some of the other baby names bestowed in the Faroe Islands in 2021 include…

  • Brá (2 girls), based on the Old Norse word brá, meaing “eyelash.”
  • Brosi (1 boy), based on the Old Norse word brosa, meaning “to smile.”
  • Drós (1 girl), based on an Old Norse word meaning “woman.”
  • Fípa (1 girl), based on the Old Norse word fífa, meaning “cotton grass.”
  • Flykra (1 girl), means “(snow) flake” in Faroese.
  • Glæma (1 girl), means “ray of light” in Faroese.
  • Glóð (2 girls), based on an Old Norse word meaning “ember, glow.”
  • Røskva (1 girl), based on an Old Norse word meaning “vigorous, brave.”
  • Smæra (1 girl), means “clover” in Faroese.
  • Urð (1 girl), based on an Old Norse word meaning “fate, destiny.”

In 2020, the top names in the Faroe Islands were Anna/Olivia (tie) and Benjamin/Elias/Lukas (3-way tie).

Sources: Statistical Database (Names) – Hagstova Føroya, Faroe Islands – Wikipedia, Nordic Names

Image: Adapted from Flag of the Faroe Islands (public domain)