Mary is the English form of the Hebrew Miryam (Miriam) — of uncertain etymology, often glossed as "beloved," "bitter," or "sea of bitterness." The mother of Jesus of Nazareth — the most venerated female figure in Christianity and a major figure in Islam (as Maryam). For most of recorded English history Mary was the single most common feminine name in the language, dominating from the medieval period until the 1960s. Queen Mary I of England ("Bloody Mary"), Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Mary Cassatt, Mary Robinson — the name carries unparalleled weight across history.
Subject of countless theological treatises, biographies, and Western art masterpieces.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Mary reduce to 3, The Communicator. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.