Marita
Feminine · “Mary plus a fragment of Margaret”
Marita is a blend of a name and a nickname. German built it from Maria and Rita, and Rita is itself a clip of Margarita, so the second half of this name is a fragment of a completely different word from the first.
How old is the name Marita?
Marita first appears in US birth records in 1901 — 124 years ago. The typical Marita alive today was born around 1956, making them about 69 years old. About 3,500 people named Marita are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Marita most popular?
Marita peaked in 1938, reaching #764 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 5,782 places below that high. See the whole 1938 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Maria to Marita
The story of Marita
German naming has produced blends for centuries, joining two women's names into one: Annemarie, Marlene, Marlies, Heidemarie, Marita. The pieces are usually a full name and a short form, which is why the result so often looks like a diminutive without being one. Spanish, meanwhile, produces Marita by an entirely different route, simply adding its productive -ita suffix to Maria, and the two coincide exactly. American records hold both, and the name's best year on file is 1938, which places it with the German and Scandinavian families of that generation as much as with Spanish-speaking ones.
Meaningscholars disagree
Mary plus a fragment of Margaret
German Marita is generally read as a blend of Maria and Rita. Maria descends from Hebrew Miryam, whose sense is unresolved. Rita is a clip of Margarita, from Greek margarites, a pearl, itself probably from an Iranian source. A second and simpler route treats Marita as the Spanish diminutive of Maria with the -ita suffix, which is also correct in Spanish-speaking families.
How the name formed
- Maria
- Rita
- Marita
Related forms: Marita · Marita · Marita · Marit
Pronouncing Marita
mah-REE-tah
Three syllables with the stress in the middle in both German and Spanish. English speakers say muh-REE-tuh, reducing the first vowel, which is the ordinary adaptation.
Nicknames for Marita
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
- 1901
- Most girls named
- 1958118 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #764reached in 1938
- Change vs 2023
- +6.3%17 in 2025, from 16
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.
Marita in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Marita in German — same name
- Marita in Spanish — same name
- Marita in Finnish — same name
- Marit in Norwegian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Pennsylvania.
Maritas among us
people named Marita are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Marita
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Marita
- #6546
- Marita on the 2025 chart
- #938
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Marita went to 17 girls in 2025, but Maritta is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 22, which makes it the 938th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,608 places above the chart.
- Marita17
- Maritta5
About 1 girl in 73,058 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,545 for Marita 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 Imelda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Marita's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Imelda climbed just as high around 1911, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Imelda's path sketches the road Marita is walking now.
Marita 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
Marita beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Marita in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two of the most enduring European women's names inside one word.
- Rita and Mari are both complete names on their own.
- Reads correctly in German, Spanish, Finnish and English alike.
- Two quite different explanations of its construction are both correct.
- Marita, Maritza and Marisa are all nearby and get confused.
- It reads as an older generation's name in Germany and Spain.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Marita
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maritas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,500 people named Marita are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Marita?
- Marita is the most-used spelling in US records — 17 of the 22 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Maritta.
- How popular is the name Marita in 2025?
- Marita ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Marita?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Marita — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Marita with classmates?
- Marita will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Marita
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Marita? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Marita and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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