It was just announced that the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory will be airing its 12th and final season beginning next month. The show stars Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, Kunal Nayyar, and Mayim Bialik, among others. Bialik, who plays neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler, has an unusual first name, the Hebrew word for water. She was not always pleased with this name, saying “When I was in grade school I was called ‘toilet water’ which was traumatic.” Why did her parents give her the name Mayim?
Mayim Bialik and Jim Parsons by Dominick D is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
A. Mayim was born via a water birth procedure, wherein the mother gives birth in a tub of warm water, which supposedly provides a more gentle transition from the warm wet womb to the cool dry air.
B. Mayim’s pregnant mother was at an Israel Day celebration at her synagogue, and was dancing to the Israeli folk song Mayim Mayim when her water burst and she was rushed to the hospital.
C. She was named after her grandmother Maryam (a form of Miriam), whose name was mispronounced as Mayim.
D. Mayim was named after her great-great grandfather, the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik. Mayim’s parents honored this lineage by compressing the Hebrew phrase, “Me-Hayim” (meaning “From Hayim”) into the name Mayim.
E. Mayim’s mother was a mute custodian working at a secret government laboratory, where she came upon a captive fish creature. She helped him escape and later engaged in a “fishing expedition” in her bathtub, which eventually resulted in the birth of her daughter, whom she named Mayim, the Hebrew word for water.