Mayme is an English feminine given name documented in the United States by the late 19th century. Its best-supported explanation is as a spelling variant of Mamie, but the relationship is not certain and does not supply Mayme with one independent literal meaning. Where Mayme represents Mamie, the expected pronunciation is MAY-mee (/ˈmeɪ.mi/).
Meaning and Formation
Behind the Name's Mayme entry describes the name only as “possibly” a variant of Mamie. Its Mamie entry gives the pronunciation /ˈmeɪ.mi/ and treats Mamie as a diminutive of Mary or Margaret. An independent historical dictionary is narrower in one respect and broader in another: the *Scottish National Dictionary* entry for Mamie, first published in 1976, calls it chiefly a pet form of Mary but also documents Scottish use for Jemima and Marion.
The most defensible account is therefore a possible two-step formation: a formal name became the familiar form Mamie, and Mayme arose as a spelling variant of that familiar form. Mary and Margaret are important possible bases, but they are not the only ones found in reference works.
The spelling itself does not reveal which full name, if any, a particular bearer had. In historical records, Mayme may be the name entered from birth or a familiar form used instead of another name. Etymology alone cannot decide which applies to an individual.
The often-repeated meaning “pearl” applies only if the relevant naming path runs through Margaret. The University of Oxford's Lexicon of Greek Personal Names identifies Greek Margarita, the source behind Margaret, with “pearl”; the fuller route is Old French Margaret, from Late Latin Margarita and Greek margaritēs, as summarized by the Online Etymology Dictionary. Mary follows a different path through Latin and Greek forms of Hebrew Miryam, whose meaning is uncertain. It is therefore misleading to give “pearl,” “beloved,” “bitter,” or any other inherited gloss as the single established meaning of Mayme.
Historical Use in the United States
Mayme was a recognizable name in the United States by the late 19th century. The Social Security Administration's decade tables record 1,841 female Maymes born in the 1880s, placing the spelling at number 134, and 2,098 in the 1890s, when it ranked number 185. Mamie was much more frequent in the same data: 6,330 occurrences and rank 57 in the 1880s, followed by 10,085 and rank 61 in the 1890s. These tables show that the SSA counted Mayme and Mamie as distinct recorded spellings, not that every Mayme was formally named that way.
Mayme's lower rank in the 1890s despite a slightly larger count reflects growth in the recorded population. By the 1900s it had fallen outside the 200 female names displayed in the SSA's decade table, although that does not mean the spelling ceased to be used.
The figures come from Social Security card applications rather than a complete register of births. The SSA cautions that many people born before 1937 never applied for a card, and it does not combine spelling variants. The tables establish documented usage and relative rank, but not the total number of children actually given the name or the formal-name relationship behind any entry.
Contemporary bearers confirm that Mayme functioned as a personal name, not merely as a modern reconstruction. Mayme Irwin Logsdon, born in 1881, became the first woman to receive tenure in the University of Chicago mathematics department. Mayme Hanrahan Ousley, born in Missouri in 1887, later served four terms as mayor of St. James. These examples document use in the same period as the SSA rankings; they do not show that all Maymes shared the same formal name or naming motive.
Mayme, Mamie, and Similar Forms
Mamie is the closest supported comparison and the basis for the usual MAY-mee reading. May and Mae resemble Mayme, but visual or phonetic similarity does not make them the same name in every record.
For an individual person, a birth record, baptismal register, school record, marriage record, signature, or obituary may show whether Mayme was a registered name or a familiar form. One document using Mary and another using Mayme can support a nickname relationship when dates, relatives, and places also agree; the etymological relationship by itself is not proof that two records concern the same person.
The Same Spelling as a Surname
Mayme also occurs as a surname, but that surname should not be derived automatically from this English feminine name. The Dictionary of American Family Names, as reproduced by FamilySearch, identifies the Spanish surname Mayme as a variant of Jaime. This is an independent surname explanation. A surname bearer and a given-name bearer can therefore share the spelling without sharing linguistic origin or ancestry.
References
- Behind the Name, “Mayme”, “Mamie”, and “Mary”, English given-name entries; the Mary entry identifies its underlying onomastic references.
- Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., “Mamie”, Scottish National Dictionary (entry first published 1976), via Dictionaries of the Scots Language.
- University of Oxford, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, “Greek Names in English”, entry for Margaret; and Douglas Harper, “Margaret”, Online Etymology Dictionary.
- U.S. Social Security Administration, *Top Names of the 1880s*, *Top Names of the 1890s*, *Top Names of the 1900s*, and *Background Information for Popular Names*, 100-percent sample of qualifying Social Security card applications current to March 2026.
- University of Chicago Physical Sciences Division, “Mayme Irwin Logsdon”, PSD Trailblazers, 2022.
- State Historical Society of Missouri, *Mayme Hanrahan Ousley Papers (R0173)*, collection inventory revised by Kathleen Seale, 10 February 2021.
- Patrick Hanks, ed., Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, 2003, “Mayme” entry reproduced by FamilySearch.