It took me 16 blogs to come full circle.
I began with my name and a play on words, Mary Frances = Mary Fran Says.
Last week I wrote about my word nerdiness and today I’m writing about my name.

(I have many a Mary story to share, this is merely an introduction!)

MARY
Mar·y /ˈmɛəri/ [mair-ee]. It is Latin in origin and it means ‘star of the sea.’ There are also some other meanings like ‘sea of bitterness,’ ‘rebellion’ and ‘wished-for child.’

People think it’s a common name, but it hasn’t been on the Top 10 Baby Names list in almost fifty years.

It seems there are so few of us around today; I was surprised to see that according to the Social Security website, http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/century.html, there’ve been enough Mary’s over the past century to hold the number one girl’s spot between 1912-2011.
This chart, http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#, shows that Mary was the most popular girls name from 1880 through the 1950’s, falling to number two in the 60’s, and out of the top ten after that.

I considered listing the famous Mary’s, but c’mon, they’re famous, you already know them.

I will mention the Mary state, but only because my mother’s name was Anne and the capital of Maryland is Annapolis. I think that’s cool.

I know a handful of Mary’s. Only a handful! I get so excited when I meet a new one. I feel like we share an instant bond, being a Mary in an Emma world.

I didn’t like my name until I was a teenager. I thought it was an old lady’s name, which made sense since I was named after a grandmother. I was working the daycare at my church and this woman brought in a newborn. A perfectly pink and cherubic tiny little life form, named Mary. That was the moment when I realized it is a lovely name and I was lucky to have it.

Plus, it rhymes with a lot of stuff so they put it in songs frequently.

This photo was taken in Rome. I didn’t paint it, I just posed with it.