Joan Bauer: Hello. My name is Joan Bauer, and my name, Joan, means gift of God. And I'm telling you, that is a lot of pressure to live up to. I remember my mother used to remind me of this, usually when I'd done something stupid, but she was really quite good-natured about it.

But growing up, I just didn't like my name at all. I thought Joan sounded so boring. I wanted to have an exciting name, ending in a vowel, like Alexandra or Bianca, but that was just not meant to be. I'm Joan.