"congregationesque aquarum appelavit Maria"! Mary in Gen 1:10

[Xavier]

St. Montfort explains a beautiful signification of Our Lady's name, She is now for us an ocean of graces in Heaven, as She was a sea of Sorrows on this earth, "God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas (maria). He gathered all his graces together and called them Mary (Maria)." And it seems St. Jerome has certainly noticed this wonderful pun, since Maria is capitalized in the Latin Vulgate! http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/vul/gen001.htm These words of the Prophet Jeremias are also understood by the Church to refer in a special way of Mary, Virgin Daughter of Sion, "To what shall I compare thee? or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? to what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O Virgin Daughter of Sion? for great as the sea is thy destruction: who shall heal thee?" (Lam 2:13); and especially Her sorrows at the foot of the Cross, where She became Mother of us and Mediatrix of Grace from Christ. Do you believe Mary is truly a sea, an ocean, a treasury of measureless graces for us Her children?

23. God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas (maria). He gathered all his graces together and called them Mary (Maria). The great God has a treasury or storehouse full of riches in which he has enclosed all that is beautiful, resplendent, rare, and precious, even his own Son. This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom the saints call the "treasury of the Lord". From her fullness all men are made rich.

24. God the Son imparted to his mother all that he gained by his life and death, namely, his infinite merits and his eminent virtues. He made her the treasurer of all his Father had given him as heritage. Through her he applies his merits to his members and through her he transmits his virtues and distributes his graces. She is his mystical channel, his aqueduct, through which he causes his mercies to flow gently and abundantly.

25. God the Holy Spirit entrusted his wondrous gifts to Mary, his faithful spouse, and chose her as the dispenser of all he possesses, so that she distributes all his gifts and graces to whom she wills, as much as she wills, how she wills and when she wills. No heavenly gift is given to men which does not pass through her virginal hands. Such indeed is the will of God, who has decreed that we should have all things through Mary, so that, making herself poor and lowly,, and hiding herself in the depths of nothingness during her whole life, she might be enriched, exalted and honoured by almighty God. Such are the views of the Church and the early Fathers.

[Daniel]

One correction here...

And it seems St. Jerome has certainly noticed this wonderful pun, since Maria is capitalized in the Latin Vulgate!

I'm pretty sure that the Vulgate's capitalization/punctuation (and even some of the spellings) was not standardized until long after St. Jerome's time. (And even if St. Jerome was the one who capitalized it, that doesn't mean he recognized the pun, since Diem, Noctem, Caelum, and Terram are all capitalized as well.)

That said, he probably did recognize at least some sort of pun involving the Latin word for "sea", and he certainly recognized the wordplay in the Hebrew. It's from him that we get "Star of the Sea". I believe there are two theories concerning this:
1.) St. Jerome may have translated the name ??????? maryam "Mary" into Stilla maris "Drop of the sea", by reading it as ??? mar "drop" + ??? yam "sea". And then Stilla maris later somehow became Stella maris "Star of the sea", most likely through transcription error.
2.) St. Jerome may have translated it directly into Stella maris "Star of the sea", by reading it as ?????? ma'or "light" + ??? yam "sea".

In either case the last half can be read as ??? yam "sea". (There's also a similar ancient Egyptian word 𓇌𓈗𓈘𓈅𓏤 or 𓇌𓏲𓅓𓂝𓈗𓈘𓈇 yem or yum? which also means "sea", if perhaps the name is of Egyptian origin...)