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There’s something on social media going around about naming five women from history. I didn’t watch the video because I don’t like watching videos, but I thought of some women from history. The first five that came to mind were Mary Wollstonecraft, Princess Elisabeth, Hypatia, Mary Shelley, and Mary Magdalene.

I noticed three of the five are named Mary. The sixth that came to mind was Mary, mother of Christ, who is probably part of the reason for the popularity. SSA data indicates in the US Mary was the most popular woman’s name from 1880-1946, then wavered into the #2 position for a couple years, rose back to #1 for awhile, then started its decline in the 1960s. In 2009 it dropped out of the top 100.

(I had some trouble thinking of a fifth Mary. I came up with “whoever Maryland is named after”. I had to check Wikipedia to make sure that wasn’t a duplicate since I had two rather prominent religious figures on the list. But, Maryland is in fact named after a queen of France, who was named Maria, but the English liked to call her Mary, anyway.)