Maria
Masculine · “Hebrew Miryam”
Maria is given to girls far more often — 566,111 girls against 4,278 boys since 1880. See Maria as a girl name
Rainer Maria Rilke, Erich Maria Remarque and Carl Maria von Weber were all men. Catholic central Europe gave boys Maria as a second name in honor of the Virgin, and it was entirely unremarkable.
How old is the name Maria?
Maria first appears in US birth records in 1911 — 114 years ago. The typical Maria alive today was born around 1974, making them about 51 years old. About 3,100 people named Maria are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maria most popular?
Maria peaked in 1982, reaching #823 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,872 places below that high. See the whole 1982 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Miryam to Maria
The story of Maria
The custom is well documented across Catholic Europe and Latin America. In Germany and Austria a boy could carry Maria as a middle name in a Marian family, which is why the poet Rilke, the novelist Remarque and the composer Weber all had it; in Spanish and Portuguese the compound Jose Maria is an ordinary man's name, as is Maria Jose for a woman, with the order deciding the sex. Bavarian and Polish naming did the same. In American records the male Maria is mostly that custom arriving with families, plus a smaller number of clerical errors, and the two are not separable. What the practice shows is that a name's sex is a convention of a particular community rather than a property of the word.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew Miryam, meaning unknown
Maria is the Latin form of Miryam, whose meaning is genuinely unsettled; bitter, beloved and an Egyptian origin have all been argued. Its use for men is a Catholic devotional practice, generally as a second name. The male peak in American records is 1982.
How the name formed
- Miryam
- Maria
Related forms: Jose Maria · Maria · Maria
Pronouncing Maria
mah-REE-ah
Three syllables, stress on the second. The pronunciation does not change with the sex of the bearer.
Nicknames for Maria
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1911
- Most boys named
- 1990103 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #823reached in 1982
- Change vs 2021
- −33.3%6 in 2025, from 9
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Maria in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jose Maria in Spanish — related form
- Maria in German — same name
- Maria in Italian — same name
Marias among us
people named Maria are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Maria
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Kipp test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maria's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kipp climbed just as high around 1964, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kipp's path sketches the road Maria is walking now.
Maria sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Maria beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maria in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is a documented traditional practice rather than an anomaly.
- Jose Maria and Mario are both available as fuller male forms.
- The name is recognized everywhere.
- In American use it reads as female to almost everyone.
- It works best as a second name, which is how the tradition uses it.
- The 1982 male peak is small.
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What they receive
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Maria
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Marias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,100 people named Maria are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maria in 2025?
- Maria ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maria?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Maria — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maria with classmates?
- Maria will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maria
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dudley#10695 · Dell#10695 · Buford#10695 · Toney#10695 · Allison#10695 · Candido#10695 · Jodie#10695 · Garnet#10695
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maria? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maria and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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