Mavis

Mavis at a Glance

Mavis is a bird name: an older English word for the song thrush. It has the compact shape of a vintage given name, with two syllables and a distinctive final s. Its history brings together birdsong, a late-Victorian novel, and two notable twentieth-century artists, singer Mavis Staples and writer Mavis Gallant.

A Name from Birdsong

The bird word came into English from Old French mauvis; its deeper origin is uncertain. Mavis refers to the song thrush, a bird whose singing is recognizable for short phrases repeated several times before it moves on to a new phrase. The name's natural imagery is therefore as much about sound as appearance.

Marie Corelli used Mavis for a character in The Sorrows of Satan, published in 1895. That literary appearance helped establish it as a personal name. Unlike some bird names that remain immediately recognizable as ordinary nouns, Mavis can sound thoroughly like a human name before its meaning becomes apparent.

Its literary use belongs to the end of the Victorian period, while its larger American birth totals came in the early twentieth century. The name now has both an old-fashioned personal history and a less obvious place among nature names such as Robin and Wren. Those are comparable bird names, rather than forms of Mavis.

A Singer and a Storyteller

Mavis Staples became famous as a lead voice of the Staple Singers, the family group whose music brought together gospel and soul. Her career also became closely connected with the civil rights movement. She continued to develop a substantial solo career, collaborating across generations of American roots music.

Her album You Are Not Alone, produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, won the Grammy for Best Americana Album in 2011. Its mixture of gospel, blues, and folk material reflects the breadth of her musical career. For many listeners, her first name carries the sound of that powerful singing voice.

Mavis Gallant was born in Montreal and worked as a journalist before moving to Europe to write fiction. She settled in Paris in 1950 and published more than a hundred stories and dispatches in The New Yorker. Collections including Paris Stories helped establish her reputation as a major short-story writer, giving Mavis a second, very different artistic association.

Pronunciation and Form

Mavis is pronounced MAY-vis, with the stress on the first syllable. The opening rhymes with “day,” and the ending has an s sound. Its five letters produce a clear two-part rhythm.

American Popularity

Mavis reached its largest annual United States total in 1927, when 603 girls received the name and it ranked 270th. By 2000, only 12 girls were recorded with the spelling; in 2010 there were 19.

Recent use is considerably stronger. In 2025, 537 girls were named Mavis, placing it 561st. That brings its annual total much closer to its early-twentieth-century high, after a long period in which it was rarely given to American newborns.

How popular is Mavis?

In 2025, Mavis ranked #561 among girls in the United States, with 537 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1893; its largest annual count was 603 in 1927. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.