Family name origins & meanings
- English : name for someone who was related to an important local personality, from Middle English maugh, maw ‘relative’, especially by marriage (from Old English māge ‘female relative’). In the north of England this term was used more specifically to mean ‘brother-in-law’.
- English : topographic name from Middle English mawe ‘meadow’. Some early forms, such as Sibilla de la Mawe (Suffolk 1275), clearly indicate a topographic origin, by reason of the preposition and article.
- English : probably also from a Middle English personal name, Mawe, Old English Mēawa, perhaps originally a byname from Old English mǣw ‘sea mew’, ‘seagull’ (compare Mew).