indicate the level to which a name has been verified.
Meaning & History
Possibly an Icelandic derivative of Mecke, a Frisian and Low German diminutive of names beginning with the Old German element megin meaning "power, strength".It is sometimes claimed to derive from the place name Mecca, though this seems unlikely. A series of slave raids by Barbary pirates took place in Iceland in the summer of 1627, known as the Turkish abductions (Tyrkjaránið in Icelandic); about 400 Icelandic people were abducted and sold into slavery on the Barbary Coast, very few of whom returned to Iceland. Supposedly one Icelandic woman who returned from captivity named her daughter after a benevolent mistress in Algeria, deriving her daughter's name from that of the holy city Mecca.