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Mawa

Discussion of the name

Mawa is an Old English feminine name of uncertain derivation but perhaps related to the verb māwan ‘to mow’ rather than to the masculine noun mæw ‘seagull’ (cf. von Feilitzen 1937: 325).

The only entries in the PASE corpus are for Mawa 1, wife of a tenth-century landholder who gave land to Ely Abbey, and Mawa 2, a catch-all for occurrences of the form Mauua in DB (see Mauua 1).

Bibliography

von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: -

Spellings in IE: Maua, Mawa

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Maua

  Phillimore edition: Mawa

  Alecto edition: -

People of this name

• Mawa 3 - Mawa ‘of Guluesteham’ (Suff.), fl. 1066