Further to Suzanne's reference below to the Wilkipedia, my own source of information- Desmond Morris- also refers to the name
Maggie.He adds that
Maggie had an original meaning of
dishevelled old woman It was also the name given to a scarecrow in some parts of the country.(Mental note: Keep those up the sleeve as wife is called Margaret
)
At the start of the century the name
Maggie was also used for cats and
Moggie X derived from that - thought to have been in London where there were so many scruffy alley cats in poor condition. The link of
Moggie to
Maggie is thought to be the dishevelled reference.
In the 1920s and 1930s schoolboy slang shortened the name to
Mogs but the fuller word
Moggie re-appeared after the 2nd world war as a popular term for ordinary non pedigree cats.
The spellings have varied so it seems that either M-O-G-G-Y or M-O-G-G-I-E is correct.
