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Molly (name)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Molly
A statue of folk song heroine Molly Malone in Dublin, Ireland.
Pronunciation/ˈmɒli/
GenderFemale
Language(s)Irish and English
Other names
Alternative spelling
  • Mollie
  • Moli
Nickname(s)
  • Mols
  • Mol
Derived
Molly Pitcher is a heroine of the American Revolutionary War.
Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, who was later called "The Unsinkable Molly Brown."
Molly Malone was the stage name of American silent film actress Violet Isabel Malone.

Molly (also spelled Molli or Mollie) is a diminutive of the feminine name Mary that, like other English diminutives in use since the Middle Ages, substituted l for r. English surnames such as Moll, Mollett, and Mollison are derived from Molly. Molly has also been used as a diminutive of Margaret and Martha since the 1700s and as an independent name since at least 1720. The name was more popular in the United States than elsewhere in the Anglosphere in the 1800s due to usage by Irish-American families and by Jewish American families who used Molly as an English version of Hebrew names such as Miriam and Malka. Its popularity with Americans was also influenced by stories about Molly Pitcher, a heroine of the American Revolutionary War.[1]

Usage

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The name has been among the 1,000 most popular names for girls in the United States since 1880 and was among the 100 most popular names for American girls at different times between 1987 and 2012. It has been among the 100 most popular names for newborn girls in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom since the 1990s, and in Denmark since 2019. It was among the top 100 names for girls in some Canadian provinces between 2007 and 2011.[2]

People

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Women

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Fictional characters

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In television and film

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In books and comics

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  • Milly-Molly-Mandy from the books by Joyce Lankester Brisley
  • Molly Millions (also known as Sally Shears), from the stories and novels by William Gibson
  • Molly McIntire, protagonist from the American Girl series
  • Molly Moon, from the Molly Moon series
  • Molly Weasley, from the Harry Potter series
  • Molly Weasley Jr., Percy Weasley's daughter in the Harry Potter series
  • Molly Bloom, wife of Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses
  • Molly Fitzgerald, alter ego of the Marvel Comics superhero Shamrock
  • Mollie, from the novel Animal Farm
  • Molly Mallard, a Disney character who is Scrooge McDuck's paternal grandmother
  • Molly Carpenter, whose full name is Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter, is initially featured in The Dresden Files as a recurring character, but grows into a main role in the novels following "Proven Guilty"
  • Molly the Goldfish Fairy, from the Rainbow Magic franchise
  • Molly, shortened name of Lady Emily Lenox, the sister-in-law of Charles Lenox in Charles Finch's mysteries
  • Molly Gibson, main character in Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters

Animals

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See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Evans, Cleveland Kent (24 September 2023). "Cleveland Evans: Molly peaked with millennials". omaha.com. Omaha World Herald. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
  2. ^ Campbell, Mike. "Molly". www.behindthename.com. Behind the Name. Retrieved 20 January 2024.