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Re: Joely
Hmmm I think it was made up by either Vanessa Redgrave (who has a daughter named Joely) or Phil Collins, who also has a Joely. They both pronounce it JO-lee and as they are the only people with this name (or at least were at the time, I suppose) I guess JO-lee is correct. It makes sense, because I guess their parents combined Joe (JO) and Lee (LEE). It never occured to me to say JO-eh-lee.
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source of JoelyWikipedia says that Tony Richardson's biography says that he & Vanessa got the name from Natasha's swimming teacher who named her daughter Joely, apparently as a misspelling of the French word jolie.I totally thought it was zho eh LEE until I actually heard it.

This message was edited 6/17/2012, 2:21 PM

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I guess misspelling and mispronunciation :P It's pronounced zho-LEE in French so if her swimming teacher pronounced it JO-lee and spelled it Joely it has nothing to do with that anymore :P Thanks for looking it up. It is so weird how the name is so common with celebs. Vanessa's daughter, Phil Collins' daughter, Carrie Fisher's sister, some N'Sync singer's daughter. Whoa!I wonder where the other celebs got it from, or whether they were inspired by Vanessa's daughter. I think she's the oldest.
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I know, I'm also partly French ;) Interestingly, it looks like there were 6 of them born in the first quarter of 1965, and none before that at all. Joely R. and one other were born in London. Must be the swimming teacher's daughter!
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