Marisha
Feminine
Marisha is a real Russian name and is usually not Russian when it turns up in American records. In Russian it is one of a graded set of household forms of Maria, each carrying a different degree of familiarity. In America it is generally a coinage, built from a Mary front and an ending that was in wide circulation, and the resemblance is a coincidence rather than a borrowing.
How old is the name Marisha?
Marisha first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Marisha alive today was born around 1987, making them about 38 years old. About 1,500 people named Marisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marisha most popular?
Marisha peaked in 1986, reaching #1669 nationally. See the whole 1986 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Maria and its graded Russian household forms to Marisha
The story of Marisha
The consonant in the middle is a single letter in Russian and needs two in English. Cyrillic has dedicated letters for sh, for ch, for shch and for a couple of other sounds English writes with digraphs, which is one reason romanised Russian names look longer and clumsier than they are. It also means that a Russian name arriving in English gains letters, and the added letters then look like decorative choices to English readers who have no idea a single character stood behind them. That is a general problem with names crossing alphabets and it produces a lot of unfair assumptions. Here it means that a name which is entirely ordinary in Moscow reads in America as an elaboration of something, when it is a straightforward transcription of a form used every day.
Meaningnot established
Not established
If the name is Russian, it is a household form of Maria and inherits that name's meaning, which has never been established despite a very long list of proposals. If it is an American coinage, there is no meaning at all. The two possibilities are not distinguishable from the spelling, and a family that took the name from a Russian relative and a family that assembled it have produced identical certificates.
How the name formed
- Maria and its graded Russian household forms
- Marisha among them, written with one Cyrillic letter for the sh
- Independently assembled in American naming
- Both routes producing the same spelling
Related forms: Marisha · Masha
Pronouncing Marisha
muh-REE-shuh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Russian says it the same way, which is unusual: most Russian names shift their stress when English speakers get hold of them, and this one does not.
Nicknames for Marisha
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
- 1955
- Most girls named
- 199272 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1669reached in 1986
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%5 in 2024, from 5
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.
Marisha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marisha in Russian — transliteration
- Masha in Russian — related form
Marishas among us
people named Marisha are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Marisha sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The sound is soft, even and completely unproblematic for English speakers.
- It is a genuine name in Russian, which gives a family with those roots something real to point at.
- Mari and Risha are two very different short forms and both stand alone.
- Most American examples are not Russian, and claiming the ancestry needs a family reason behind it.
- It will be written Marissa or Marisa by people taking it down from speech.
- There is no meaning to give on either route, since the parent name has none either.
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Marisha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Marishas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Marisha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Marisha in 2025?
- Marisha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Marisha with classmates?
- Marisha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marisha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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