Mariana
Feminine · “From Latin Marianus”
Mariana is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 45,887 girls against 85 boys since 1880.
Mariana has been on American birth records since the late nineteenth century and has never gone away — a Latin name that reached English through Rome, Spain and Portugal, and reached English poetry through Shakespeare, who gave the name to characters in both Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well. Tennyson borrowed one of them for his 1830 poem, and Millais painted her. Four syllables, all of them open vowels, and every one of them easy to say.
How old is the name Mariana?
Mariana first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Mariana alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 44,000 people named Mariana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mariana most popular?
Mariana peaked in 2005, reaching #165 nationally. Today it ranks #260, 95 places below that high. See the whole 2005 chart.
Where it comes from
From Marius to Mariana
The story of Mariana
The name begins as Latin, the feminine of Marianus, a name built from the Roman family name Marius. It took deep root in Spain and Portugal, where it was also heard as Maria and Ana combined, and traveled with those languages across the Atlantic — Mariana de Jesús de Paredes, the seventeenth-century Quito ascetic later canonized, is among its best-known bearers. English met it by a different road: Shakespeare used it twice, and Tennyson's poem 'Mariana' fixed it in the nineteenth-century literary imagination. In the United States it has been recorded continuously since the late nineteenth century, carried steadily by Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking families and by English speakers alike.
Meaningscholars disagree
From Latin Marianus, 'of Marius'; also read as a blend of Maria and Ana
The older line is clear: Mariana is the feminine of the Roman name Marianus, formed from the family name Marius — whose own root is not established, though it has long been linked to the god Mars. Alongside that, in Spanish and Portuguese the name has been understood for centuries as Maria and Ana joined together, and both readings are genuinely in use.
How the name formed
- Marius
- Marianus
- Mariana
Related forms: Mariana · Mariana · Mariana · Marianna · Marianna · Marianne
Pronouncing Mariana
mah-ree-AH-nah
That is the Spanish and Portuguese pronunciation, and the usual one in the US. English speakers also say mar-ee-AN-uh, with a flat middle vowel, which is how Tennyson's poem is read. Both are correct; it helps to offer one when introducing her.
Nicknames for Mariana
High
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
- 1888
- Most girls named
- 20061,992 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #165reached in 2005
- Change vs 2022
- −5.2%1,192 in 2025, from 1,257
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.
Mariana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mariana in Spanish — same name
- Mariana in Portuguese — same name
- Mariana in Romanian — same name
- Marianna in Italian — spelling variant
- Marianna in Polish — spelling variant
- Marianne in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Marianas among us
people named Mariana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,348 born in 2025 was named Mariana
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mariana
- #260
- Mariana on the 2025 chart
- #213
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mariana went to 1,192 girls in 2025, but Marianna, Maryanna and Maryana are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 1,538, which makes it the 213th most-given girls’ name of the year — 47 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 1,045 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 1,348 for Mariana itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Sonia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mariana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sonia climbed just as high around 1976, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sonia's path sketches the road Mariana is walking now.
Mariana 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
Where Mariana is headed
Mariana should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Mariana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mariana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the same way in Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian, so it crosses languages and borders without adjustment.
- Instantly readable to English speakers even when they haven't met it — the letters do exactly what they look like.
- Several long-established short forms, from Mari to Ana, so she can choose how formal to be.
- A continuous record in the US stretching back to the nineteenth century, with no gap and no fashion collapse behind it.
- Familiar without being crowded — she is unlikely to share it with a classmate.
- Two pronunciations circulate, the Spanish mah-ree-AH-nah and the anglicized mar-ee-AN-uh. Neither is wrong, but she may spend her life gently correcting whichever one she doesn't use.
- It sits close to Marianna, Marianne, Maryana and Mariah, and people who hear it will sometimes write one of those instead. The spelling itself is simple; the neighbors are the problem.
- The Mariana Trench and the Mariana Islands share the name, so it turns up in geography lessons — a mild, mostly harmless association, and one that at least makes it memorable.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Mariana
Feminine · #260 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Marianas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 44,000 people named Mariana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mariana?
- Mariana is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,192 of the 1,538 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Marianna, Maryanna and Maryana.
- How popular is the name Mariana in 2025?
- Mariana ranks #260 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,192 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mariana?
- About 1 in every 1,348 US girls born in 2025 was named Mariana — 1,192 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mariana with classmates?
- Mariana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mariana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Adalyn#260 · Leila#259 · Norah#262 · Journee#258 · Aliyah#263 · Amy#257 · Ophelia#264 · Juliana#256
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mariana? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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