Mavis (pr. may-viss) is the name of a type of bird, a song thrush found in Europe, which comes from Old French mauvis (thrush) which seems to be derived from an unknown/uncertain origin, though possibly from a Breton origin. Apparently, its first use as a given name was from an 1895 novel, “The Sorrows of Satan” by English author Marie Corelli (1855-1924).

Mavis is also a surname, a variant of German surname Maves, a variant form of Mewes, a pet-form of given name Bartholomäus, the German form of Bartholomew meaning “son of Talmai”, Talmai being either a Hebrew name meaning “furrow”, either referring to a plough-man or someone who owned land; or it could be related to Ptolemy meaning “warlike, aggressive” which comes from Ancient Greek pólemos (war, battle) derived from a pre-Greek origin. 

Origin: from Old French via an unknown origin; Aramaic, Hebrew, pre-Greek

Meaning: “song thrush” or “songbird”; also a German surname “son of Talmai”

Usage: English


  • Mayvis (English)

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s