Explore the Family Name Mabie

The meaning of Mabie

1. Presumably an altered form of French Mabille, a cognate of Mabile. Alternatively, perhaps an adoption of the Scottish or English surname Mabie (see 2 below) or of an altered form of English Mabey 1 in place of the original Dutch surname Van Naerden, an extinct variant of Van Naarden, a habitational name for someone from Naarden in the province of North Holland, the Netherlands. Compare Mabee 1 and Mabey 2. 2. Possibly also Scottish or English: habitational name from a place so named in the parish of Troqueer in Kirkcudbrightshire, or, alternatively, a variant of English Mabey 1. This surname is apparently no longer found in Britain. History: The progenitor of the majority of the American Mabies was Pieter Casparszen van Naerden from the Netherlands, who was in New Amsterdam in New Netherland (now New York City, NY) by 1647, where he died in the mid 1660s. He was supposedly of French Huguenot extraction, reportedly a grandson of Pierre Mabille from Neuvy in France, who is said to have escaped to Naarden in the Netherlands after 1572. Pierre Mabille’s surname is listed in the (US) National Huguenot Society’s register of qualified Huguenot ancestors (as Pierre Mabille de Nevi or Mabie) and also in the similar registers of the Huguenot Society of America and the Huguenot Society of South Carolina (as Pierre Gaspard Mabille). However, proof of a French (Huguenot) origin for Pieter Casparszen van Naerden is difficult to substantiate, partly because the first documented use of the surname Mabie or of any of its variants by members of his family reportedly occurred only several years after his death.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.