# Women named JoAnne outside of Buffalo **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 22, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-named-joanne-outside-of-buffalo/345616 "2006-02-22T13:17:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-named-joanne-outside-of-buffalo/345616/1 "2006-02-22T13:17:35Z")
Head to the City of Good Neighbors, and it seems like one out of every ten women you meet is named JoAnne. It’s especially grating when you hear the name in a Buffalo accent - Jo-HEE-ayn. I’ve met few, if any JoAnnes in other cities where I’ve lived, but when I’m back home in Buffalo I encounter at least two a day, if not more. Is the name common in the rest of the country, or is it just a Buffalo thing? Why is the name so popular among Buffalonians? Are there certain first names that are unusually common in your area, but rare elsewhere? Unscientific proof: a Google image search for “Joanne Buffalo” results in 623 hits. for “Joanne Cleveland” – the Cleveland metro area being more than twice the size of the Buffalo area – there’s only 500 hits. “Joanne Detroit” results in 499 hits, “Joanne Chicago” 276 hits, and “Joanne Toronto” only 254 hits. ---
**Author:** ![cards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@cards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cards)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-named-joanne-outside-of-buffalo/345616/2 "2006-02-22T13:42:49Z")
Well, my wife is a Joanne, we live in St. Louis but she is from Philly. Her parents were German, might there be a large portion of Germans in Buffalo? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-named-joanne-outside-of-buffalo/345616/3 "2006-02-22T14:13:40Z")
What there might be - no, IS - a large proportion of in Buffalo is Catholics. And Joanne/JoAnne/Jo Anne/etc. is as second-generation-white-ethnic-Catholic a girl’s name as there is. German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, pick a name, there’ll be a Joanne for it. If she’d been born 20 years earlier she’d have been Joan, probably. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-named-joanne-outside-of-buffalo/345616/4 "2006-02-22T14:22:57Z")
joanne milwaukee - 731 joanne “st louis” - 906 One St. Louis Joann (no e) was a cop killed on duty in 1991. Seeing her picture choked me up. ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-named-joanne-outside-of-buffalo/345616/5 "2006-02-22T15:12:47Z")
OMG! joanne houston = 1,890,000 hits! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-named-joanne-outside-of-buffalo/345616/6 "2006-02-22T16:02:10Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > What there might be - no, IS - a large proportion of in Buffalo is Catholics. And Joanne/JoAnne/Jo Anne/etc. is as second-generation-white-ethnic-Catholic a girl’s name as there is. German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, pick a name, there’ll be a Joanne for it. If she’d been born 20 years earlier she’d have been Joan, probably. Yep. My 70 something Aunt is Joan. My 50 something stepmother is Joanne. My brothers ex-wife is a Joanne but she’s from Philadelphia not Buffalo. I can’t say I know any 30ish Joannes. I say the name burned out. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-named-joanne-outside-of-buffalo/345616/7 "2006-03-01T09:29:30Z")
I’m from Cleveland and I have _two_ cousins and an aunt named Joanne. Please don’t capitalize the a in the middle. Will you count Joann too, or only Joanne? How many spelling variants are there? What about Joanna? It’s the original form of the name in Latin, used in the New Testament. From Greek Ιωαννα. I think Joanna sounds the nicest of all the variants. When people don’t notice the h in my name and pronounce it Joanna, I like it and I don’t correct them. My name is an alternate form of Joanna developed in medieval Latin. The -h- was added probably in imitation of the masculine form Johannes, by scholars who knew the etymology. I just opened this thread to mention my cousins’ and aunt’s names. I don’t know if mine is considered a variant or a different name. I would say a variant because it’s my habit to always think of the etymology. I don’t know why Joanne seems like an Italian-American phenomenon, considering Buffalo and all. Giovanna is not an unusually frequent name in Italy.