Variant spelling of Maisie, a Scottish diminutive of Margaret meaning 'pearl.'
Masie is a variant spelling of Maisie, itself a Scottish diminutive of Margaret — a name whose roots stretch back through Latin Margarita to Greek Margaritēs, meaning "pearl." The pearl was among the most precious commodities of the ancient world, harvested from distant seas and traded along the Silk Road, so to be named for one was to carry an aura of rarity and luminous beauty. In Scotland, where Mairead gave rise to the affectionate shortenings Mysie and Maisie, the name became deeply woven into folk culture long before it reached literary fame.
Henry James gave Maisie international literary standing in his 1897 novel What Maisie Knew, in which a young girl navigates the wreckage of her parents' divorce with precocious perceptiveness. The novel's child protagonist — observant, resilient, morally intact amid adult chaos — permanently attached qualities of emotional intelligence and quiet strength to the name. Rudyard Kipling also used it in verse, and in the early twentieth century Maisie enjoyed broad popularity across Britain and the English-speaking world before fading mid-century.
The spelling Masie represents the name's oral tradition given visual form — spelling it as it sounds when spoken quickly and warmly, the way a grandmother calls across a garden. The contemporary revival of Maisie, driven partly by the popularity of Game of Thrones actress Maisie Williams, has made all its spellings fashionable again. Masie, with its slight distinction, suits parents who love the sound but want a softer visual silhouette — the pearl slightly differently lit.