A kitchen wench was once called a malkin—
"The kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram[33] 'bout her reechy neck,
Clamb'ring the walls to eye him."
(Coriolanus, ii. 1.)
This is a diminutive of Matilda or Mary, possibly of both. Grimalkin, applied to a fiend in the shape of a cat, is perhaps for gray malkin—
"I come, Graymalkin."
(Macbeth, i. 1.)
The name malkin was transferred from the maid to the mop. Cotgrave has escouillon (écouvillon), "a wispe, or dish-clowt; a maukin, or drag, to cleanse, or sweepe an oven." Écouvillon is a derivative of Lat. scopa, broom. Now another French word, which means both "kitchen servant" and "dish-clout," is souillon, from souiller, to soil. What share each of these words has in Eng. scullion is hard to say. The only thing certain is that scullion is not originally related to scullery, Old Fr. escuelerie, a collective from Old Fr. escuelle (écuelle), dish, Lat. scutella.
A doll was formerly called a baby or puppet. It is the abbreviation of Dorothy, for we find it called a doroty in Scottish. We may compare Fr. marionnette, a double diminutive of Mary, explained by Cotgrave as "little Marian or Mal; also, a puppet." Little Mary, in another sense, has been recently, but perhaps definitely, adopted into our language. Another old name for doll is mammet. Capulet uses it contemptuously to his daughter—
"And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer: 'I'll not wed,'—'I cannot love.'"
(Romeo and Juliet, iii. 5.)