error connecting to database on Mac install

I’m installing WP on my Mac (Sierra) in the user site localhost/~eric/wordpress.

I’ve created a DB called wordpress in mariadb with ‘wordpress’@’localhost’ as the user and ‘wordpress’ as the password. The install proceeds ok until the connect to the DB page, then I keep getting “Error establishing a database connection.” I list:
Database name. wordpress
Username. wordpress
password. wordpress
database host. localhost
table prefix wp_

I also tried wordpress@localhost as the user name, but that didn’t help.

I can log onto the maria db as wordpress from the terminal without any problem.

The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]