(a) this would presuppose that the Hebrew title would have been transcribed phonetically in a Greek text instead of being translated. This would be against normal usage.
(b) It takes no account of the system used for phonetically transcribing Hebrew words into Greek letters at that time. Too many letters would have to vanish or be changed.
(c) The adjective must be put in the feminine, and this makes the jump in the spelling even bigger, since a suffix would have to vanish.
I have thought of a way of reformulating your suggestion to make it workable. To do this I had to look up every instance of the name in all four Gospels. The full explanation will be sent later today (Sunday). For a start, note that the original form of the name even in Geek was certainly Mariam, not Maria, according to the mss. of the N.T. Second, there are THREE different formulas for citing the name with its epithet, if you look at the mss. One of these supports your suggestion, one is compatible with it, and the third, which does not support your suggestion, can (I think) be shown to be a secondary development due to Greek style.
On Mariam. First, some data, not all of it immediately relevant. The original form of the name in all the Gospels was Mariam. The form Maria is an adaptation within Greek later on. The ms. evidence on this is overwhelming. Mariam is a straight phonetic transcription of the Hebrew form. (The commonest pronunciation in Hebrew at the time was Maryam, with Miryam being fairly rare). A sequence of two M’s, one at the end of the name and one at the start of the epithet, is certain. Remember I said that word division was not always shown in Greek. Neither was it always shown in Hebrew or Aramaic. The use of special final forms for some letters, including MEM, was unsystematic. One M could thus become two, or two could become one, in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. As said before, there are three formulas in the Greek:
(a) The commonest is mariam magdlEnE (using capitals to show long vowels). This means Mariam from Magdala.
(b) Once there is hE magdalEnE maryam, meaning the Magdalene Maryam, distinguishing her from other Maryams.
(c) Once there is mariam hE kaloumenE magdalEnE, meaning Mariam known as the magdalEnE. Second, some possible routes. I said that there was a difficulty with the assumption of a phonetic transcription of a title or epithet rather than a translation.
Form (c) is actually natural Greek. A phonetic transcription of a title can be used with this phrasing. The difficulty remains that the title is Greek in form. Too much would have to be assumed for this to have been the route. Also, I think the loss of knowledge (deliberate or not) of what the title meant must have been before the formulation in Greek. Here is the route I favour. An Aramaic name and title Maryam Magdalta meaning Maryam who has been made great (perhaps an initiatory technical term) has become IN ARAMAIC by a misunderstanding that might well have been deliberate Maryam Magdelayta, meaning Maryam from Magdela, with the addition of one letter, a YOD. Then this has been translated into Greek. I can’t see any way of going from any Hebrew form to Maryam of Magdela. Too much would have had to be changed. A form Maryam Hammagdalit MRYM HMGDLYT meaning Maryam from Magdela is too from Maryam Haggedola MRYM HGDWLH.
As far as I can see, the only route that works is the one that assumes the existence of a title “made great”. The only alternative would be to start with Maryam Hammeguddelet MRYM HMGDLT meaning Maryam brought up in the household, but this would more normally be spelt MRYM HMGWDLT, and besides, I can’t see how the meaning would fit.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: I wasn’t thinking when I wrote the last part of the message. I should have said I can’t see any suitable context for an ARAMAIC title Maryam Meguddalta MRYM MGDLTA meaning Maryam brought up in the household, and anyway this would normally have been spelt MRYM MGWDLTA ( have used A to represent ALEF). I still favour a deliberate change of Maryam Magdalta MRYM MGDLTA meaning Maryam who has been made great to Maryam Magdelayta MRYM MAGDLYTA meaning Maryam from Magdela.
ANOTHER ADDITIONAL CLARIFICATION: I also forgot to clarify that I think the change from Magdalta to Magdelayta happened in the Aramaic original of the original single long gospel, by DELIBERATE change, not accident. If you think the assumption of a single original long Gospel in Aramaic is unnecessary, then I would still say the change was DELIBERATE, and was from the Greek megalE, great, to magdalEnE. I still insist that in Greek style, and Hebrew and Aramaic style as well, a phrase of the form “Maryam hE kaloumenE magdalta” meaning Maryam known as the Magdalene implies that magdalEnE was a TITLE, but this would only make sense if it had originally been Greek megalE or Aramaic Magdalta.
A sample of what appears in the Real Messiah order it here
