{"id":15177,"date":"2021-01-22T12:15:39","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T16:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15177"},"modified":"2021-01-22T17:39:13","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T21:39:13","slug":"baby-girl-marvey-with-an-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2021\/01\/22\/baby-girl-marvey-with-an-h\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Marvey-with-an-H"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi,<\/p>\n

My husband and I are struggling to come to an agreement on a name for our first daughter who is due very soon, in March 2021. The baby’s last name will sound like Marvey, but starting with H. After long discussions, we can only agree on one name. I am French and my husband is American; we both like the French version of Jane: Jeanne (pronounced Zhann or Jhann).<\/p>\n

However, we live in the US and are concerned about how it will be pronounced here, either Jean\/Gene or even Gee-Ann. We are okay with Jean but wonder if it will be confusing for her to have two very different sounding names, one at home and another in the world, or if she’ll end up correcting people constantly. And we definitely don’t like Gee-Ann. Is it likely people might call her Gee-Ann if we spell it Jeanne? Should we just give up on this name to spare her a lifetime of frustration or do you suggest going ahead with it, or perhaps changing the spelling…?<\/p>\n

We really appreciate your thoughts or if you have other name suggestions. For inspiration, I like Eleanor, Adele, Ana\u00efs (dropped because of another pronunciation issue…) and my husband likes Miranda and Anna.<\/p>\n

Thank you!
\nC.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do think she will be called Jean very very often (I don’t think anyone will ever GUESS Zhan; many people won’t even be aware of it as an option), and that she will have to correct people constantly and\/or decide not to bother (such as with receptionists and baristas and other situations where it doesn’t matter and there’s no long-term gain in making the effort), though her inner circle will learn to say it Zhan. And if you are okay with having two pronunciations, and okay with correcting people when it seems worth it, then I think it’s fine: a constant mild issue, but not a big deal if you don’t find it irritating. I don’t think she will find it confusing; I think she will grow up with those two pronunciations and it will seem completely normal to her. <\/p>\n

My guess is that she would be called Gee-ann almost never, but perhaps someone who is or knows a Jeanne could weigh in. My feeling is that, despite knowing that Joanne is pronounced like Jo-anne, we all know that Jeanne is pronounced Jean—except for the occasionally mental slip, such as when someone sees the name Evan and briefly pronounces it Even or Yvonne before realizing.<\/p>\n

Another issue is that I think her name will be misheard as John: for example, on the phone if you are saying Zhan Marvey, I think it will happen pretty often that someone will write down John Marvey.<\/p>\n

For me, this would all be Too Much to be worth it. But people vary widely on their tolerance for mispronunciations\/corrections, and “My mom is French!” is a quick and adorable explanation she can use, and it would not take long for all of you to get into the habit of saying “It’s Zhan: J-E-A-N-N-E, Zhan” and “Oh, actually it’s pronounced Zhan—it’s French.” (I wish Jeanne D’Arc was an easy reference, but unfortunately I hear her name almost exclusively said as Joan of Arc.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi, My husband and I are struggling to come to an agreement on a name for our first daughter who is due very soon, in March 2021. The baby’s last name will sound like Marvey, but starting with H. After long discussions, we can only agree on one name. I am French and my husband […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3WN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15177"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15189,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15177\/revisions\/15189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}