Maria

1,652,966 people in America carry this name — ranked #8 of 923.

A name of the post-war decades.

Say it mur EE uh

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

M ER0 IY1 AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 1,652,966 2020 Census
  • Rank #8 Very common

Where Maria comes from and what it means

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “bitter”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Maria through the years

555,635 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1964, with 10,197 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60s 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1960s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Maria

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Maria Mary — same opening
  • Maria Michelle — same opening
  • Maria Ashley — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Never out of use

Maria has been given in every decade on record — no fashion lifted it and none has dropped it.

Is Maria used for boys or for girls?

0.2% men
1,649,077 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The states where Maria is most common

In Texas the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Texas ×1.9
  • California ×1.7
  • New Mexico ×1.7
  • Arizona ×1.6
  • New York ×1.4

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 14.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 1.3%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 81.3%
  • Two or more races — 0.5%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.5%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Full names people carry

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Names with the same rhythm as Maria

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the second

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin