Mum, mummy, mam, mammy, ma, maw, or mom?
I’ve put together some maps to show what British and Irish people call their mothers, when speaking English. This data is from surveys that focused on adults, rather than children.
While I’ve tried to make them as accurate as possible, in areas with low population densities they may be a little off.
Darker colours show where a term dominates, lighter colours show where it is common but a mixture of terms are also common. Respondents had the option to pick multiple terms, so there is some overlap, which is why this is 7 images rather than one.
The most common term across the UK is “mum”, being used across most of England and Scotland. For children “mummy” is also very common, although in adults it is more localised to Ireland, and the wealthier areas of southeast England. The origin of “mum” seems to be obscure. Wiktionary has “mum” potentially coming from a shortening of “mummy”, but then lists “mummy” as a diminutive of “mummy”.
“Mam” is the Welsh and Irish word for “mother”. As such it is very common in Wales and Ireland. It’s also very common in the Northeast and Cumbria. Liverpool and Manchester also use this term, although it has become less common, perhaps due to migration into these areas. Some people in Scotland also use mam. “Mammy” is used by children in Scotland, and many of the areas where “mam” is common”. It’s rarer for adults in the UK, but in much of Ireland it is the most common term.
“Ma” and “maw” apparently come from clippings of “mam”, which is the Irish word for “mother”, and also the a Scots word for mother. “Ma” is most common in eastern and north-eastern Ireland, while “maw” is common across the Central Belt of Scotland. Ma is used by some people in Scotland too, but is not the most common term anywhere, at least according to the surveys I’ve used.
And finally, “mom” is often seen as North American word, but in fact it has historically been used in parts of England and Ireland for centuries, totally independent of its North American form. It is the most common word for mother in Birmingham, for reasons that seem to be lost to history. It was apparently once more widespread across the west of England.
It’s also common in southwest Ireland, which as far as I can tell is due to phonology of Irish in Munster. The Irish word for mother is “mam”, but in Munster Irish the short “a” is diphthongised before word-final “m” to make a [au] sound, which seems to have influenced the spelling and pronunciation of Cork and Kerry word to give us “mom” in English.
“Mommy” is also used in a similar area, but is rarer for adults, so I didn’t bother making an image for it.