Not the Fran
My sister and her husband both have siblings called Fran. This creates a "my Fran" and "your Fran" situation but recently his Fran said he doesn't like being Fran and prefers Francis. My brother-in-law's best friend is also called Francis but goes by Frank.
My siblings were named on a Bob Dylan theme. But not me. The firstborn, my dad said that after watching that my mum could have named me anything she liked. There was no deep and meaningful, she saw the name of an economics correspondent in the paper and liked it. Voila. It is actually French. Free woman.
It's usefully androgynous in spoken form and often written. In theory the female is with an e, the male with an i. This was not always the case, certainly up to the Victorians there could be a male Frances at least, I'm not sure on the vice versa.
In conversation with other France/ises they all report it mostly being spelled the opposite of theirs, which feels accurate. Also a surprising amount of people ask if it's short for Francesca, whereas I think Francesca is rarer? So that seems unlikely.
It was very popular in the 1920s getting into the top ten female names though that ran the risk of being nicknamed Fanny which I am absolutely not into.
I'm also Auntie Fran, which I think sounds like a pesticide or I try to style it The Anti Fran but my sister won't let me. I never assumed there would be the "auntie" title - we didn't use it with our aunts and uncles growing up. All the kids went through stages from "Bam" to "Fan".
In conclusion: Approved, to be retained.
Previous •