Marion

MARY-un

A sweet diminutive of Mary, long associated with Maid Marian and medieval romance.

Meaning

Marion is generally treated as a diminutive or familiar form of Mary, coming through French and Scots usage. In the 19th-century sources provided, it is explicitly glossed as “a diminutive of Mary,” though one source also records an older popular etymology linking it to Hebrew “bitter” through Mary.

Origin

Fun fact

The name’s popularity in English owes something to Maid Marian, the legendary May-lady of Robin Hood lore.

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Confidence: mixed. Sources: History of Christian Names, Praenomina; or, the etymology of the principal Christian names of Great Britain and Ireland, Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature.

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