Marija
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Croatian: a female given name, equivalent to English Mary
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/mǎrija/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Marija is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country, where it is the most common given name.
- HRCroatia1 in 33(measured from records)
- ECEcuador1 in 16as Maria
- SVEl Salvador≈1 in 16as Maria
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Marija itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- #1 (measured from records)
- 11 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 679 (measured from records)
- 1 in 33 (inferred from the name graph)
12,284,478 named Maria, 2022
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Croatia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
11 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Maria in BR Brazil, AR Argentina, EC Ecuador and 1 more, Mary in US United States, PH Philippines, CZ Czechia and Мария in RU Russia.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
a female given name, equivalent to English Mary
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 24 languages in the etymology graph.
How Marija is read(measured from records)
Marija is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Croatian71%
a female given name, equivalent to English Mary
as a wordrecorded as Serbo-Croatiankaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
žensko lično ime biblijskog podrijetla
as a wordrecorded as Serbo-CroatianSkok, Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (1971-74)
- Russian18%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Marija in Russian.
- Lithuanian14%
Mary (Biblical figure)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Marija counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | #1 | 12,284,478as Maria | 1 in 17 | 12M | Maria | 306 |
| AR Argentina | #1 | ≈2,300,000 est. | ≈1 in 20 | 5.3K | Maria | 253 |
| RU Russia | #19 | ≈2,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 72 | #4 | Мария | 263 |
| US United States | #1 | 1,768,343as Mary | 1 in 188 | 1.8M | Mary | 679 |
| PH Philippines | #1 | ≈1,200,000 est. | ≈1 in 92 | 27K | Mary | 225 |
| EC Ecuador | #1 | 1,042,139as Maria | 1 in 16 | 1M | Maria | 165 |
| CZ Czechia | #22 | 521,052as Marie | 1 in 21 | 521K | Mary | 130 |
| SV El Salvador | #2 | ≈410,000 est. | ≈1 in 16 | 627 | Maria | 110 |
| HR Croatia | #1 | 126,646 | 1 in 33 | 127K | Marija | 152 |
12,284,478 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Top 500 First Names in the Philippines (PSA FOI response, tracking; INEC — civil registry names; This page discusses the popularity of names in Sonsonate, El Salvador, and Puno, Peru in the 1980s, published by Maybe i; MVČR — living population register 2017; DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Marija is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, Marija är en slavisk skrivning av → Maria.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In Maltese, a female given name from Sicilian [in turn from Latin, in turn from Ancient Greek, in turn from Aramaic], equivalent to English Mary
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, A transliteration of the Macedonian or Serbo-Croatian female given name Марија (Marija), equivalent to Mary
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russiab. 1786RURussian Grand Duchess
- Maria Feodorovnab. 1847DKEmpress consort of Russia (1847–1928)
- Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russiab. 1853RUDuchess consort of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1853–1920); sixth child and second daughter of Alexander II of Russia and Maria Alexandrovna (Marie of Hesse)
- Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russiab. 1899RUGrand Duchess of Russia (1899–1918); third daughter of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse)
- Maria Meneghini Callasb. 1923USAmerican-Greek operatic soprano (1923–1977)
- Maria Zakharovab. 1975RURussian foreign ministry spokesperson since 2015
- Maria Vorontsovab. 1985RUdaughter and eldest child of Vladimir Putin
- Maria Sharapovab. 1987RURussian tennis player
- Maria Kirilenkob. 1987RURussian female tennis player
- Lordeb. 1996NZnot in their usual nameNew Zealand singer, songwriter and producer (born 1996)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 71 sources across 35 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 127K | #2 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Učestalost osobnih imena (Popis 2021) | 2021 | 94K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.4K | #6,576 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 654 | #586 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 327 | #658 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 29 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 29 | #96,655 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 7 | #6,576 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 5 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — births 1922–2015 (Kaggle mirror) | 1983 | 2 | — |
| AR Argentina | datos.gob.ar — nombres.datos.gob.ar per-name lookup (1922–2015) | 1986 | 1 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 1979 | 1 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Marija mean, and where does it come from?
- a female given name, equivalent to English Mary Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Marija a male or female name?
- Marija is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Marija have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 12 million people named Maria, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Marija most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Marija is densest in Croatia — about 1 in 33 people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Marija?
- In the etymology graph, Maria, Mary and Marie are forms of the same name in other languages; Maja, Marica and Mojca are recorded short or pet forms.
- How common is the name Marija?
- In Croatia, the national register counted 126,646 people named Marija in 2021, about 1 in 33 residents.
- How common is Marija compared with other names?
- In Brazil, Marija is the most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Marija?
- A machine transcription gives /mǎrija/ (IPA) for Croatian.
What do you want to know about Marija?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/marijaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Marija” — the most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.