Can we link this question to that of the remarkable - even impractical-seeming - number of Marys in the Gospel narratives? Was there a fashion within Judaism at the time - or within some religious tendency from which Jesus came - to call women MaryX or MaryY or Mary Daughter/Wife of Z? Then Mary becomes the presumptive name of Jesus’ mother, being a woman of god fearing family? Just an idle thought.
Can we link this question to that of the remarkable - even impractical-seeming - number of Marys in the Gospel narratives? Was there a fashion within Judaism at the time - or within some religious tendency from which Jesus came - to call women MaryX or MaryY or Mary Daughter/Wife of Z? Then Mary becomes the presumptive name of Jesus’ mother, being a woman of god fearing family? Just an idle thought.