Miriam
Meaning of Miriam
Miriam is the Anglicized form of the ancient Hebrew Miryam—a name first recorded in Exodus and still puzzling etymologists, who variously trace it to Egyptian mry (“beloved”), Hebrew marar (“bitter”) or meri (“rebellion”), each yielding a slightly different shade of meaning. Historically anchored by Moses’ vigilant sister, the name carries theological reach across Judaism, Christianity and Islam, a cross-cultural portability that helps explain its quiet resilience in American records: after peaking inside the Top 150 in the 1920s, Miriam declined through the post-war decades, leveled off in the 300s during the 1970s, and now circulates in the mid-200s with about 1,200 newborn bearers annually—enough to stay visible without surrendering to fad status. Literary and artistic references—George Eliot’s birth name, Leonard Cohen’s “So Long, Marianne” (a cognate form), and H. D.’s protagonist Miriam Henderson—further clothe it in scholarly and creative associations. In sum, Miriam offers parents a carefully aged classic: recognizably biblical, faintly academic, and comfortably immune to the boom-and-bust cycles that buffet more fashionable choices.
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Notable People Named Miriam
| Miriam Makeba, known as Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist associated with Afropop, jazz, and world music who spoke out against apartheid. |
| Miriam Defensor Santiago was a Filipino scholar and stateswoman who served in all three branches of government, was a long serving senator and elected judge of the International Criminal Court, received the Quezon Service Cross as the sole female honoree, and was named among the 100 Most Powerful Women in 1997. |
| Miriam Margolyes is a British and Australian actress, BAFTA winner for The Age of Innocence, best known as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, and an OBE recipient for services to drama. |
| Canadian novelist Miriam Toews, author of nine books including A Complicated Kindness, All My Puny Sorrows, and Women Talking, has won the Governor General's Award and two Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prizes and is a three time Giller finalist. |
| Miriam Yeung is a Hong Kong actress and singer. |
| Dame Miriam Louisa Rothschild was a British naturalist and author who made major contributions to zoology entomology and botany. |
| Ellen Miriam Hopkins was a versatile American actress who signed with Paramount Pictures in 1930. |
| Miriam Roth was a pioneering Israeli preschool educator and children's literature scholar and author, a longtime kindergarten teacher whose many books became bestselling Israeli classics. |
| Miriam Adelson is an Israeli American physician, businesswoman, and philanthropist who is a conservative political donor and the widow of Sheldon Adelson. |
| Miriam Solomon is a Temple University philosophy professor and department chair whose work spans philosophy of science, social and medical epistemology, medical ethics, and gender and science, and who has authored two books, many articles, and served on major journal editorial boards. |
| Miriam G. Sherin is a Northwestern University professor and associate provost whose research on math teaching and teacher cognition includes the book Mathematics Teacher Noticing. |
| Miriam Stannage was an Australian conceptual artist whose painting, printmaking, and photography earned awards, extensive solo and group shows, and inclusion in two Biennales and two major retrospectives. |
| Miriam Bryant is a Swedish singer and songwriter who in 2016 became the first artist to hold the top three spots on the Svensktoppen chart since its 1962 debut. |
| Miriam Stoppard, the professional name of Miriam, Lady Hogg, is an English medical doctor, journalist, author, and television presenter. |
| Míriam Colón - Puerto Rican actress Miriam Colon Valle, founder of New York City’s Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, was best known as Mama Montana in Scarface and earned the 2014 National Medal of Arts after decades on stage and TV. |
