A few days ago I was headed out for our “winter golf” meeting at a friend’s house. Since we had just gotten a foot or so of snow, I called another friend and told him I’d pick him up since there was no sense in making a mess of both our cars. I told Claire that I was going to pick up Bill on the way to golf and she said, “oh good, give these to Mary” and handed me a bag. Well, here’s the problem — both the guy I was picking up and the guy whose house we were going to, both have wives named Mary. And of course I gave the bag to the wrong Mary.
Well, that got me to thinking about Mary. I know a lot of people named Mary, but I can’t think of any young people I know named Mary. Naturally my extensive research mode kicked in and I discovered that if you check the most popular names for girls in the years 1914 to 2013, Mary is number one in 42 of those years. But — here’s the interesting part — since 1961 Mary has never been in the top ten and has been falling in popularity consistently. In 2011, Mary had fallen to 112th place in popular names for girls. If you like statistics, the number of girls named Mary at birth has fallen 94 percent since 1961.
If you look up “Mary,” the definition is usually just a feminine name or a reference to the Virgin Mary, or Mary Magdalene, or some other Mary of note. In Hebrew the meaning of the name Mary is: wished-for child; rebellion; bitter. The name Mary has always been a popular name for girls and when you hear it, besides being a nice name, a lot of people associate it with religion. The name Mary appears 61 time in the New Testament in 53 different verses.
I can think of quite a few Marys off the top of my head — not counting the obvious Mary, Mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Mary Queen of Scotts, there’s Mary Tyler Moore and Mary Poppins. Merrill Streep has a daughter named Mary Willa and I’ve read books by Mary Higgins Clark and books about Mary — Mary, Mary Quite Contrary and Mary that had a little lamb. Mary Katherine Gallagher was the name of a character on Saturday Night Live and I remember a movie, There’s Something About Mary. Mary Todd Lincoln was Abe’s wife and a famous silent movie stare was named Mary Pickford. I used to like Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary and I still like Bloody Marys and who could forget Typhoid Mary and Mary Anne from Gilligan’s Island, the song Proud Mary and the RMS Queen Mary.
With all those Marys rattling around in my head, no wonder I gave the bag to the wrong Mary.
Maybe there really is something about Mary….
— 30 —