Maryam (name)

Maryam or Mariam is the Aramaic form of the biblical name Miriam (the name of the prophetess Miriam, the sister of Moses). It is notably the name of Mary the mother of Jesus. The spelling in the Semitic abjads is mrym (Hebrew מרים, Aramaic ܡܪܝܡ, Arabic مريم), which may be vowelized in a number of ways (Meriem, Miryam, Miriyam, Mirijam, Marium, Maryam, Mariyam, Marijam, Meryem, Merjeme, etc.)

Via its use in the New Testament the name has been adopted worldwide, especially in Roman Catholicism, but also in Eastern Christianity, in Protestantism, and in Islam. In Latin Christianity, the Greek form Mariam was adopted as latinate Maria (whence French Marie and English Mary). Forms retaining the final -m are found throughout the Middle East, in Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Urdu, and Persian, as well as the Horn of Africa, including Amharic, Tigrinya, and Somali, Turkish and in Malayalam as Mariyam in south India.

Etymology
The name may have originated from the Egyptian language; in a suggestion going back to 1897, it is possibly derivative of the root mr "love; beloved" (compare mry.t-ymn "Merit-Amun", i.e. "beloved of Amun"). Maas (1912) references (but rejects) a 1906 suggestion interpreting the name as "beloved of Yahweh". Maas (1912) further proposes possible derivation from Hebrew, either from marah  "to be rebellious", or (more likely) from mara "well nourished".

The name has a long tradition of scholarly etymologisation; some seventy suggestions are treated by Otto Bardenhewer in monographic form in his Der Name Maria (1895). It was early etymologized as containing the Hebrew root mr "bitter" (cf. myrrh), or mry "rebellious". St. Jerome (writing c. 390), following Eusebius of Caesarea, translates the name as "drop of the sea" (stilla maris in Latin), from Hebrew מר mar "drop" (cf. Isaiah 40:15) and ים yam "sea". This translation was subsequently rendered stella maris ("star of the sea") due to scribal error, whence the Virgin Mary's title Star of the Sea. Rashi, an 11th-century Jewish commentator on the Bible, wrote that the name was given to the sister of Moses because of the Egyptians' harsh treatment of Jews in Egypt. Rashi wrote that the Israelites lived in Egypt for two hundred ten years, including eighty-six years of cruel enslavement that began at the time Moses' elder sister was born. Therefore, the girl was called Miriam, because the Egyptians made life bitter (מַר, mar) for her people.

Modern given name
Modern given names derived from Aramaic Maryam are frequent in Christian culture, as well as, due to the Quranic tradition of Mary, extremely frequently given in Islamic cultures. There are a large number of variants and derivations.

The New Testament gives the name as both Mariam (Μαριάμ) and Maria (Μαρία). The Latin Vulgate uses the first declension, Maria.

Maryam is the now-usual English-language rendition of the Arabic name. The spelling Mariyam (in German-language contexts also Marijam) is sometimes used as a close transcription from Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic.

The spelling Mariam is current in transliteration from Georgian and Armenian, and in German-language transliteration from Aramaic or Arabic. Mariam was also a current spelling in early modern English, as in the Jacobean era play The Tragedy of Mariam.

Derived names
Maryam as the name of Mary mother of Jesus is also part of given names consisting of genitive constructions (idafa) in Ethiopian tradition, such as Haile Mariam "power of Mary",

Baeda Maryam "Hand of Mary", several people Newaya Maryam "Property of Mary" or Takla Maryam "Plant of Mary", used as masculine given names. In Arabic, Marwan, meaning "one who is fragrant like myrrh", could be the masculine form of Maryam.

Ustad Ali Maryam, architect in 19th century Persia, added Maryam to his name after building a house for an important woman with that name.

Notable people with the name Maryam

 * Maryam Abacha (born 1945), widow of Sani Abacha, de facto President of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998
 * Maryam Babangida (1948–2009), wife of Nigeria's head of state from 1985 to 1993
 * Maryam d'Abo (born 1960), English film and television actress
 * Maryam Fatima, Pakistani actress
 * Maryam Goumbassian (1831–1909), an Ottoman Armenian actress
 * Maryam Khan (born 1989), American politician
 * Maryam Matar (born 1975), Emirati geneticist and medical researcher
 * Maryam Mirzakhani (1977–2017), Iranian mathematician
 * Maryam Monsef (born 1984), Afghan Canadian politician
 * Maryam Nemazee, Iranian British broadcast journalist
 * Maryam Nawaz Sharif (born 1973), Pakistani politician
 * Maryam Omar (born 1993), Kuwaiti-born Palestinian cricketer
 * Maryam Rajavi (born 1953), leader of the People's Mujahedin of Iran
 * Maryam Salour (born 1954), Iranian visual artist
 * Maryam Shanechi, Iranian-American neuro engineers
 * Maryam Yakubova (1931–2018), Uzbek educator
 * Maryam Zakaria, Swedish-Iranian actress
 * Maryam Tanveer Ali, popularly known as Maya Ali, Pakistani television actress

Notable people with spelling variations of the name Maryam

 * Mariam A. Aleem (1930–2010), Egyptian artist and academic
 * Mariam Ansari, Pakistani film actress
 * Marriyum Aurangzeb, Pakistani politician
 * Mariam Brahim (born 1956), Chadian physician
 * Mariam Mamadashvili, Georgian singer
 * Mariam Mirza, Pakistani television actress and beautician
 * Marium Mukhtiar, a Pakistan Air Force pilot who died in fighter jet crash
 * Mariyam Nafees, Pakistani television actress