Modern spelling of Maeve, from Irish Méabh, a name associated with a famed legendary and regal figure.
Mayve is a variant spelling of Maeve, one of the great names of the Irish mythological tradition. The original Old Irish form, Medb, is typically translated as "intoxicating" or "she who makes drunk" — a meaning that speaks not to vice but to the overwhelming, dizzying power the name's most famous bearer embodied. Queen Medb of Connacht, one of the central figures of the Ulster Cycle, is among the most formidable women in all of Celtic mythology: a sovereign in her own right, a military commander, and the instigator of the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), Ireland's great epic narrative.
She is neither villain nor simple hero — she is sovereign, flawed, magnificent, and impossible to look away from. The name traveled through medieval Irish as Meadhbh and into anglicized forms as Maeve, Maive, and Mayve, the last spelling lending the name a slightly more modern, visual sensibility while preserving the original sound. In Irish tradition, Medb was also associated with the fairy mounds — some scholars connect her to the Sovereignty goddess figure, the land itself embodied as a powerful woman who tests and confers kingship.
Shakespeare's Queen Mab, the fairy queen who rides through dreamers' minds in Romeo and Juliet, is almost certainly a distant echo of this same mythological figure. Maeve and its variants have surged in popularity in the English-speaking world since the early 2000s, riding a broader wave of interest in Celtic names that feel both ancient and elegantly spare. Mayve in particular appeals to parents who want the richness of the mythology with a spelling that signals something slightly their own.