Mavis is an old English word for the song thrush, from the Old French mauvis, so the name means "song thrush" or simply "songbird". It became a given name after Marie Corelli used it for a character in her 1895 novel The Sorrows of Satan, and singer Mavis Staples is a beloved American bearer. In the United States Mavis ranked number 8367 in 2000, returned to the top 1000 in 2016 and reaches number 561 among girls' names in 2025, its best rank in this century.