The origin of the given name Maria is not yet completely clear. This gives rise to several possibilities for a meaning. Probably, Maria means ‘gift of God’. This is derived from the Hebrew word ‘rym’, which means ‘to give’.
Maria is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.
The name Maria isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Maria ranks 105. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 17 were named Maria. In total, there are currently 546,183 people – children, adults and seniors – named Maria living in the United States, which is approximately 0.16 % of the entire population.
The origin of the given name Maria is not yet completely clear. This gives rise to several possibilities for a meaning. Probably, Maria means ‘gift of God’. This is derived from the Hebrew word ‘rym’, which means ‘to give’.
Mary or Maria
Mary (also known as »Mary of Nazareth«) is the mother of Jesus as mentioned in the New Testament. She lived with her husband Joseph and other relatives in the village of Nazareth in Galilee. Mary is particularly revered in Christianity as the mother of Jesus Christ and is also mentioned in the Koran as »the virgin mother of Jesus«.
Mary or Maria of Magdala
Mary of Magdala (Latin Mary Magdalene and Greek María Magdalené) is mentioned in the New Testament. The evangelists mention her as a companion of Jesus and witness to his crucifixion and resurrection. In addition, there are a number of writings that have been rediscovered since the 19th century and in which Mary Magdalene is mentioned.
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (*1987)
Maria Scharapowa is a former Russian tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 21 weeks and is one of the few tennis players to have won all four Grand Slam tournaments at least once. She is also an Olympic medalist and is considered to be one of the best tennis competitors of her generation.
Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (1867-1934)
Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie, better known as »Marie Curie« was a physicist and chemist of Polish origin. As part of her research, for which she was awarded a proportional Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911, she discovered the chemical elements polonium and radium together with her husband Pierre Curie. Marie Curie is the only woman among the five people to have been awarded a Nobel Prize more than once and, along with Linus Pauling, the only person to have received Nobel Prizes in two different fields.
Maria Theresa of Austria (1717-1780)
Born Maria Theresia Walburga Amalia Christina, Maria Theresa of Austria (1717-1780) was a princess from the House of Habsburg. The Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary (including Croatia) and Bohemia, who reigned from 1740 until her death, was one of the most influential monarchs of the era of enlightened absolutism. By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and Holy Roman Empress.
Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulou (1923-1977)
Better known as »Maria Callas« the US-born Greek singer who also held Italian citizenship, was one of the most important sopranos of the 20th century. Oftentimes she was praised for her bel canto technique, her wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations. Due to her musical and dramatic talents she was frequently called »La Divina« (»The Divine One«).
When you hear the name Maria, you might first think of a woman or a girl. But did you know that there are also places with the name Maria? Are you also called Maria? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
is the name of three cities: one is located on the island of Sal in the island state of Cape Verde, another in California in the USA and another in southern Brazil.
is a church and monastery building in Greece. It is often visited by pilgrims as it is considered to be the short residence or death house of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.
»Anna Maria« is the name of a town in the US state of Florida, located on a barrier island on the Gulf of Mexico.
There is a small coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean named »Îles Maria«. Also known as »Hull Island«, its original name is »Nororotu«.
»Hurricane Maria« was a deadly Category 5 hurricane in September 2017. It devastated the northeastern Caribbean, particularly the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
is a private Roman Catholic college which you can find in Buffalo, New York (USA).
Maria is the epitome of perseverance. Every year since first names have been registered in the U.S., parents have come up with the idea of naming their child Maria. This means that several girls named Maria have witnessed significant events such as the first Nobel Prize ceremony, the moon landing, the release of the first cell phone, or the turn of the millennium. The first name Maria has reached its best rank of #31 multiple times, most recently in 1975. The name has also been in the top 100 for many years. This makes Maria one of the most popular names of all time.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Maria was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
Maria will be Maria. Like every other year, there have been newborns named Maria in 2022 – in fact 2,831 to be precise, confirming Maria as is still a very popular first name. In this most recent year for which US-wide statistics are available, the name ranked #88 among all girls‘ names. For comparison, the least popular year for this first name was 1899, when only 266 baby girls were named Maria.
Maria is one of the most common names in the U.S. – in all states combined, 543,481 women would currently turn around if you called out MARIA really loud. Across all states and age groups, this lands Maria on position 52 in our SmartGenius ranking of the top female names – of course, the current popularity as a baby name for newborns looks somewhat different, as you can see from the statistics above. With so many women named Maria, it’s no surprise that the name is widely used in every single state in the U.S., but would you have guessed that it’s especially popular in Texas? Here, 1,19% of all female residents bear the name Maria – that is a total of 133,435 women with this popular name and no other state has as many women named Maria relative to its population. But that’s not all the popularity: in Texas Maria belongs to the top 10 of all womens names – the 133,435 elevate their name up to place #2 in the SmartGenius ranking of the most common female names for Texas.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter M is a quite popular first letter for girls' names. That’s because 8.5% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letters A and S are more common for girls' names.
With five letters, the name Maria is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Therefore: As 8.5% of all girls' names start with an M, this initial letter occurs nearly 2.5-times as often as all 26 letters on average – and the most common one of all the girls’ names starting with M is Mary.
If your name is Maria and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Maria, you can simply say:
Mouse
Apple
Rocket
Igloo
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Maria
Maria
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
M
A
R
I
A
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
M
A
R
I
A
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Maria sounds like this:
