MARY DAVID

Originally a Middle English Anglicized form of French Marie, from Latin Maria. This is a New Testament form of Miriam, which St Jerome derives from elements meaning ‘drop of the sea’ (Latin stilla maris, later altered by folk etymology to stella maris ‘star of the sea’). Mary was the name of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, who has been the subject of a cult from earliest times. Consequently, the name was extremely common among early Christians, several saints among them, and by the Middle Ages was well established in every country in Europe at every level of society. It has been in use ever since, its popularity in England having been relatively undisturbed by vagaries of fashion until the 1960s, when it began to decline sharply. In the New Testament, Mary is also the name of several other women: Mary Magdalene (see Madeleine); Mary the sister of Martha, who sat at Jesus's feet while Martha served (Luke 10:38–42; John 11:1–46; 12:1–9) and who came to be taken in Christian tradition as symbolizing the value of a contemplative life; the mother of St Mark (Colossians 4:10); and a Roman matron mentioned by St Paul (Romans 16:6).

Jewish, Welsh, Scottish, English, French, Portuguese, German, Czech, Slovak (Dávid), and Slovenian: from the Hebrew personal name David ‘beloved’, which has been perennially popular among Jews, in honor of the Biblical king of this name, the greatest of the early kings of Israel. His prominence, and the vivid narrative of his life contained in the First Book of Samuel, led to adoption of the name in various parts of Europe, notably Britain, among Christians in the Middle Ages. The popularity of this as a personal name was increased in Britain, firstly by virtue of its being the name of the patron saint of Wales (about whom very little is known: he was probably a 6th-century monk and bishop) and secondly because it was borne by two kings of Scotland (David I, reigning 1124–53, and David II, 1329–71). Its popularity in Russia is largely due to the fact that this was the ecclesiastical name adopted by St. Gleb (died 1015), one of two sons of Prince Vladimir of Kiev who were martyred for their Christian zeal.