MAGGIE MARTIN

Pet form of Margaret, now also used as an independent given name. In the Middle Ages the short form Mag(g) was common, as a result of the early loss in pronunciation of the English preconsonantal r; it is no longer used as a given name, but it did give rise to the surname Maggs.

English, Scottish, Irish, French, Dutch, German, Czech, Slovak, Spanish (Martín), Italian (Venice), etc.: from a personal name (Latin Martinus, a derivative of Mars, genitive Martis, the Roman god of fertility and war, whose name may derive ultimately from a root mar ‘gleam’). This was borne by a famous 4th-century saint, Martin of Tours, and consequently became extremely popular throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. As a North American surname, this form has absorbed many cognates from other European forms.