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I'm much more of a purist when it comes to names that started as nicknames than most people are---for instance, I hate to see Jack on a birth certificate--and Mamie started as a nickname for Mary, so for that reason alone I wouldn't approve of it as a given name. And that aside, I find it ugly and childish and slightly ridiculous.

Doesn't sound like a name at all to me. It's got this awkward sound and reminds me of the word 'mammy.'

I don't like it, it reminds me of "mammy".

This is my great grandma's name. Well, actually, no. Okay. It was one of her very many names that weren't her real name. I don't understand how she got so many names. But some people called her Mamie. I think her children? So it smacks of very very very very old southern ladies to me.

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I wonder if, by the time I have kids, I will be into using this as a nickname for some other M name. Like Mary. It would be really cool and retro on a teenager in about 2027, I think.

Sounds extremely old-timey, and either very humble (evoked by the idea of it as a slave name), or else a flapper name that is just too antique to vibrate as cool today. Saying Mamie out loud gives anybody's voice a sort of hillbilly twang. NMS

This message was edited 9/14/2013, 11:38 AM

I don't usually have a problem with nicknames-as-first-names, but Mamie needs a more formal name, IMO. Mary or Margaret NN Mamie would be very cute.

This is my middle name and I hate it. When people read it out they always pronounce it Ma-mee, rather than May-mee. It was almost my first name, but thankfully my parents reconsidered that.

It seems like the ultimate "Southern black servant" name, like it really should have been a character in "The Help." Seems to be used that way in lots of other "white Southerners and their faithful servants" type of books. Probably because it's so similar to Mammy.

It's hideous.