Maia

Maia comes from Greek, where the word maia meant mother or nurse. In the old stories she was the eldest of the Pleiades and the mother of Hermes, a goddess tied to nurture. The meaning kept on the Polish site, good mother, dobra matka, follows directly from that root.

In Poland the name is most often written Maja, the familiar variant, while Majka serves as the warm diminutive. The spelling with j settled in long ago. On an official form at the urząd, only Maja will do, and Majka stays at home.

The sound is short and open. A child answering to Majka at three can sign Maja on a diploma at twenty without changing a thing. What stays underneath, from the Greek maia to the meaning dobra matka, is the idea of the good mother.