Mary Hampton

(female) 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).

English and Scottish: habitational name from any of the numerous places called Hampton, including the cities of Southampton and Northampton (both of which were originally simply Hamtun). These all share the final Old English element tūn ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’, but the first is variously hām ‘homestead’, hamm ‘water meadow’, or hēan, weak dative case (originally used after a preposition and article) of hēah ‘high’. This name is also established in Ireland, having first been taken there in the medieval period.