I read somewhere that this is a French diminutive of
Mary, thus "Little
Mary."
The more common usage of the word, as a puppet worked with strings, is from medieval traveling players who presented religious plays in their puppet theaters, as well as ruder entertainment when the authorities were not around, in which the character Marionette got into all sorts of scrapes. It was the tradition that the same names were used all the time, e.g. Punch and
Judy, Harlequin and
Columbine, etc.
This message was edited 8/31/2008, 4:34 PM