The OED’s entry on ‘may’ runs to 22,000 words, confounding the notion that English is a simple language

The associations of the word “Trump” tend towards the unpleasant, but Theresa May has done rather better with her surname, which abounds in connotations of youth and beauty.

The most likely source for the surname seems to be the biblical given name Matthew, although it may have some connection with the month, being bestowed on someone who was born in May, had feudal obligations falling in May or possibly had a sunny disposition.

From Anglo-Saxon times, “May” has been the name of the fifth month. It came into English from the classical Latin Maius, which seems to derive from the name of the goddess, Maia. Maia was the eldest of the seven Pleiades and gave birth to Zeus’ son, Hermes. The Pleiades did not have a happy fate. Driven to despair by the loss of their father, Atlas, and their sisters, the Hyades, they committed suicide. Zeus then turned them into stars and placed them in the sky, where they can be seen as a cluster in the constellation of Taurus.