Daily Prompt: Identity – It’s Maryann, Not Maryanne, Not Marianne

Submitted for the Daily Prompt: Identity

Assignment: Do you know the meaning of your name, and why your parents chose it? Do you think it suits you? What about your children’s names?  Photographers, artists, poets: show us IDENTITY.

I actually don’t know the background of how I came to be named Maryann.  It was a very popular name at the time.  The early sixties was not the most popular time for the name though.  Here are a few facts about the name according to a website and much of what I write must be given credit to the site’s copyright.

http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Maryann-name-popularity.html#numOfChart

My name is of English origin but my family is entirely Irish 🙂

The meaning of Maryann is “bitter, grace”.  Take a look at the title of my post.  I think they may have gotten the bitter part right :(.  The spelling of my name is just a pet peeve as I am definitely not a bitter person.  More about that later.

Maryann, is generally used as a girl’s name.  In the U.S. in 2012, it  ranked 1789 in popular baby names for girls with 114 occurrences (definitely not trending).  Less than 5 boys were given the name. (This totally shocked me.  Statistically it is not likely that I would ever meet a boy named Maryann but I never ever thought it would ever be used for a boys name.  No offense if you are out there.)

The website has a lot of cool charts that you can look at statistics about your name.  You can even have it create your name in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Numerology and Nautical Flags.  I wasn’t able to copy the charts but I will comment on some of the data.

In the popularity of the name Maryann, it currently popularity is nearly as low as it was in 1880-1915.  By 1915 it broke the 100 mark of babies named annually and it is in that range now.

After 1915 it steadily grew in popularity until World War II where the popularity exploded.  By this I mean the number of babies named Maryann.  When you look at the rank, it didn’t change much.  I think births alone were exploding; however I didn’t think that was until after the war.

By the time I was born, it was at the end of its period of being in excess of 1,000 babies named Maryann annually.

As you can see by the title of my post, there are variations on the name Maryann.  This has been a bit aggravating to me.  Now I don’t blame anyone who writes my name when they don’t know me and never saw my name in print.  It is everyone else that does not get forgiven :(.  If I send you an email and my email has a signature section at the end that has my full name, title, company, company address, email address and website, there is no reason for you to respond back Maryanne, or Marianne.  If we work for the same company, even if not directly, get my name right on correspondence.  Even the DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) had to mess with my name.  Back when I was a teen and getting my drivers license for the first time, I didn’t know any better.  The DMV put me in the database as Mary A. and I am forever dealing with problems when showing photo ID is required.  I consciously have to be careful when I am ordering airline tickets.  Don’t think that boys being named after their fathers are the only people who deal with the Sr. and Jr. identity confusion either.  My mom is named Mary but she has a middle name that is not Ann (I don’t have a middle name.  It is supposed to be one word) and I have had identity merging issues with my mom.  Our names are not the same and we don’t even have the same last name any longer.  I am done ranting now.

Have a nice day 🙂