Maria
Meaning of Maria
Maria dances off the tongue as mah-REE-ah or muh-REE-uh, a sun-splashed name that sailed from ancient Hebrew “Miryām,” slipped through Latin lips as “Maria,” and now twirls across the globe with a rose in her hair. She carries a bouquet of meanings—sometimes “beloved,” sometimes “star of the sea,” always wrapped in devotion thanks to the Virgen María, whose story echoes in chapels from Seville to São Paulo. In pop culture she pops up everywhere: serenaded by mariachis, spinning on Broadway in “West Side Story,” and even humming through “How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?” She’s a timeless traveler—equally at home in a Spanish plaza, an Italian piazza, or an English playground—offering parents a classic with a sparkle, like a splash of lime in a summer agua fresca.
Pronunciation
Italian
- Pronunced as mah-REE-ah (/maˈriːa/)
Spanish
- Pronunced as mah-REE-ah (/maˈɾi.a/)
English
- Pronunced as muh-REE-uh (/məˈriə/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Maria
| Maria Sharapova is a Russian former world number one who won five major singles titles among 36 career titles and is one of ten women to complete the singles career Grand Slam. |
| Maria Callas, an American born Greek soprano known as La Divina, was a 20th century opera icon celebrated for bel canto mastery, dramatic intensity, and a wide repertoire from opera seria and bel canto to Verdi, Puccini, and early Wagner. |
| Maria Theresa ruled the Habsburg monarchy from 1740 to 1780 as its only female sovereign and, through marriage, also held the titles Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and Holy Roman Empress. |
| Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator who was among the first women to earn a medical degree in Rome in 1896, created a child centered method now used in schools worldwide. |
| Maria Tallchief, born Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief, was an Osage American ballerina who became America’s first major prima ballerina and with George Balanchine helped revolutionize American ballet. |
| Maria Edgeworth was an Anglo Irish novelist and pioneer of realist childrens literature, widely read in the early 1800s and best known for Castle Rackrent. |
| Maria Angelita Ressa is a Filipino American journalist, cofounder and CEO of Rappler, former CNN Southeast Asia investigative reporter, and a professor and distinguished fellow at Columbia University. |
| Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily and de facto ruler, drove enlightened reforms and naval expansion before turning Naples into a police state to stop the ideas of the French Revolution. |
| Dominican actress Maria Montez rose to 1940s fame in Technicolor costume adventures, earning the title Queen of Technicolor and appearing in 26 films across North America and Europe. |
| Maria Goeppert Mayer - Maria Goeppert-Mayer was a German American theoretical physicist who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for the nuclear shell model, becoming the second woman to win it, and an early career award is named for her. |
| American astronomer Maria Mitchell discovered a comet, won a Danish gold medal, became a pioneering Vassar College astronomy professor, and was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the AAAS. |
| Maria Viktoria Mena is a Norwegian pop singer known for international chart hits. |
| Maria von Trapp - Maria Augusta von Trapp, stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family, wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which inspired The Trapp Family film and later The Sound of Music on stage and screen. |
| Maria Cunitz was a pioneering Silesian astronomer whose Urania propitia simplified the second law of Kepler, and she is honored by a Venus crater and the minor planet 12624 Mariacunitia. |
| Maria Bamford is an American actress and stand up comedian known for dark, self deprecating humor about her family and mental health. |
