My mother said she named me "Mavis" because she had had a little student in her one room school named Mavis and liked it. Mavis is actually an English sur-name. A man whose last name was Mavis found a "new" bird and named it Mavis. That's how it got to be a girl's name. From the bird. Now I see Mavis used as a first and last name for men and women. My daughter was looking at recent births in her town and found a new baby named Mavis. That was unusual. All the people that I know named Mavis are getting quite old.