Baby Name: Miriam

What’s the best thing about Halloween? If you said the costumes, or the parties, or the history, or the carving of very elaborate jack-o’-lanterns…you’d be wrong. Because the correct answer is: the candy.

But, as funny as I think it would be to meet a kid named Twizzler, I don’t want people taking names from candy wrappers and putting them onto birth certificates. So let’s look at candy-inspired baby names in a slightly different way by focusing on a single brand with a simple name: M&M’S.

Did you know that M&M’S are the top-selling Halloween candy in California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.? They’re the second-best seller in eight other states, and the third-best seller in three more.

More important for our purposes, though, is the fact that the brand name is essentially the same letter twice. So let’s check out baby names that similarly have two M’s, but two separate M’s. Because, if the candies won’t melt in your hand, the M’s shouldn’t meld in a name.

So here are over 20 baby names with two audibly distinct M’s, just like M&M’S candies:

• Amram (m) – “exalted nation” in Hebrew.
• Chrysanthemum (f) – flower name, from the ancient Greek words for “gold” and “flower.”
• Jemima (f) – “dove” in Hebrew.
• Kimimila (f) – “butterfly” in Lakota.
• Leimomi (f) – “pearl lei” or “pearl child” in Hawaiian.
• Malcolm (m) – “disciple of Saint Columba” in Scottish.
• Mamie (f) – pet form of Mary or Margaret.
• Maram (f) – “wish, desire” in Arabic.
• Maximus, Maxima, Maximilian, etc. (m/f)- “greatest” in Latin.
• Megumi (f) – Japanese name with various possible meanings, including “love, affection.”
• Memphis (m/f) – “his beauty” in Egyptian.
• Menachem (m) – “comforter” in Hebrew.
• Mimi (f) – pet form of M-names like Mary and Maria.
• Miriam (f) – original Hebrew form of Mary.
• Maryam (f) – Arabic form of Maria.
• Momoka (f) – Japanese name with various possible meanings, including “peach” + “fragrance.”
• Montgomery (m) – English surname, from Norman French, meaning “Gumarich’s mountain.”
• Mortimer (m) – English surname, from Old French, meaning “still water.”
• Muhammad (m) – “praiseworthy” in Arabic.
• Tomomi (f) – Japanese name with various possible meanings, including “friend” + “beautiful.”

Which of the M+M names above do you like best?

And, are you curious to know what the M’s in “M&M’S” actually stand for? Mars and Murrie, the surnames of Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, the businessmen who created M&M’S back in the early 1940s. Forrest was the sons of Frank C. Mars (founder of Mars, Incorporated) and Bruce was the son of William F. R. Murrie (president of Hershey’s).

Sources: Top Halloween Candy by State [Interactive Map] – CandyStore.com, Memphis – Online Etymology Dictionary, Behind the Name

Image: Adapted from Plain-M&Ms-Pile (public domain) by Evan-Amos