Family name origins & meanings
- Variant spelling of Mabey.
- Dutch : this is a prominent Dutch family name in the Schenectady area of NY, where a Mabee Farmhouse still survives from the late 17th century. The name is derived from French Mabil(l)e, and came from Valenciennes in France, to the Netherlands in the 1580s, and thence to New Netherland in the 1650s. Mabee is the most common form, but it probably developed through Mabie, as a phonetic spelling, in the Netherlands, into its present form in Schenectady, where spelling was influenced by English conventions.