May
A Latin name for the month of May, and the spring it opens. In Poland it stays rare: most people here have never met a May, and almost everyone who carries it is a woman.
May Pronunciation
May is pronounced MAH-ih (/ˈmaɨ/).
What May means
Where May comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
May begins in Latin. The month we call May comes from Maius mēnsis, the month of Maia, a Roman goddess of growth and the quickening of young plants. The poet Ovid floated a second reading, that May honours the maiores, the elders, with June left to the young. Either way, the word reached English early, by the 1050s, borrowed straight from Maius.
From the calendar it became a name, and it stayed close to home among English speakers.
The meaning has not strayed far from the month. To carry May is to carry spring itself, the green turn of the year when the days stretch out. The sense is plain to render in Polish too: wiosna, the month of maj. No Polish imieniny is fixed to it, so on a school class register the name stands a little apart from the saints around it. That foreignness is part of its charm.
The story is short. May is the fifth month, worn as a given name.
How many people are named May
1 in 145444 women in Poland is named May. 161 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2548 among female names.
May's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been climbing since 2025.
May as a middle name
May is a first name for 161 women in Poland and a middle name for another 246, a 40/60 split, almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 433rd, between Lisa (246) and Lesława (244).
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#431 Augusta247
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#432 Lisa246
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#433 May246
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#434 Lesława244
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#435 Claire243