A female name. the usual English form of Amabel (q.v.) Mabella is found as early as 1189; other latinized forms are Mabilla, Mabilia. The usual English forms were Mabel, Mable, or Mably. The surnames Mabley, Mabb, Mabbs, Mapp, Mapps (from the nickname Mab), Mabbit, Mabbot (from the diminutive Mab-et, Mab-ot), Mapson, Mappin (from the diminutive Mab-in) are all derived from it. Mabell occurs in Yorkshire in 1604, and Lyford 1655 gives Mabella, but the name was rare from the 15th C. Charlotte Mary Yonge, History of ChristianNames, 2 vols. 1863. Revised ed. 1884 says, ‘it is still used among the northern peasantry’, a remark which is left unaltered in the 2nd edition of her work (1884), though Mabel must by then have been returning into fashion. It was a favourite name in the last quarter of the 19th C. Mabella Curia Regis Rolls 1189. Mabillia Curia Regis Rolls 1196. Mabilia Hundred Rolls 1273, Feudal Aids 1284. Mabilla Feudal Aids 1303, 1346. Mabell Yorks Rec 1604. Mabyle, Mably, Mabill, Mabile, Mable, Mabel English Register of Godstow Nunnery, c. 1450 (E.E.T.S. 129-30) 1450.

For the etymology, see Mab. Helena Swan pertinently adds that ‘it is a mistake to think that the name is derived from the French, ma belle, “my beautiful,” or “my fair one”, though often bestowed under that impression.’ The name shows a—to some, disconcerting—tendency to fall below stairs.

MABELL. A female name derived from Mabilia, Latinised from Amabel, q. v.

A Latin name, meaning: My beautiful one. (Erse) Merry. The Latin derivation commonly accepted is rejected by Swan, a high authority, who maintains the name is derived from an Irish term meaning merry, i.e. meadhbh, Meave and Mab being its original forms.