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[Facts] Marionette
I read somewhere that this is a French diminutive of Mary, thus "Little Mary."The more common usage of the word, as a puppet worked with strings, is from medieval traveling players who presented religious plays in their puppet theaters, as well as ruder entertainment when the authorities were not around, in which the character Marionette got into all sorts of scrapes. It was the tradition that the same names were used all the time, e.g. Punch and Judy, Harlequin and Columbine, etc.

This message was edited 8/31/2008, 4:34 PM

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I know a French woman whose name is Marinette, a similar diminutive of Mary, possibly influenced by the name Marionette.
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That is interesting. I know "Marion" is/was a diminutive of Marie, and since "ette" is also a dimniutive ending that makes sense.I really like the name Marietta, another Mary diminutive, but my mother just said it sounds like a puppet. I'll have to tell her Marionette was originally a name, too!
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