For some reason it was exploding in popularity from the the 1900’s (as in the oughts, not the century) to 1930 in Finland.

It's because everyone wanted to associate their kids with the English Queen Mary. Idk why. My Italian grandparents named all their kids after English royalty too.

In France I know a Maia, in Sweden a Maja!

Maia ha ha

Oh lawdy-lawd, I never realised Maija Mehiläinen is nationalist propaganda as well.

That's the Finnish name for it, works a lot better, I think.

Sulevi Riukulehto suggested that the book may have carried a political message. This view depicts the beehive as a well-organised militarist society and Maya as an ideal citizen. Elements of nationalism also appear when Maya gets angry at a grasshopper for failing to distinguish between bees and wasps (whom she calls "a useless gang of bandits" [Räubergeschlecht] that have no "home or faith" [Heimat und Glauben]) and at a insulting fly, whom Maya threatens to teach "respect for bees" and with her stinger. Riukulehto interprets this to mean that respect is based on the threat of violence. Collectivism versus individualism is also a theme. Maya's independence and departure from the beehive is seen as reproachable, but it is atoned by her warning of the hornets' attack. This show of loyalty restores her position in the society. In the hornet attack part of the story, the bees' will to defend the hive and the heroic deaths of bee officers are glorified, often in overtly militarist tones.