Maria
A feminine name of Latin origin meaning "wished for child".
Name Census estimates that about 438,999 living Americans carry the first name Maria. It sits at #74 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly female name (99.2% of registrations). The average person named Maria today is around 44 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Maria births was 1964 (10,196 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Jack (432,820).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Maria. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Maria with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Maria is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 4,272 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
439K
~ 1 in 781 Americans
Peak year
1964
10,196 babies that year
Average age
44
years old
2024 SSA rank
#74
Tracked since 1880
Census
Maria in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,652,964 people with the first name Maria, which placed it at #8 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#8
National first-name rank
People counted
1.7M
1,652,964 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
547.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
81.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Maria
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maria is Hispanic at 81.3%. The next largest groups are White (14.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Maria described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Maria at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino81.3% · 1,343,883
- White14.2% · 234,934
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.5% · 41,556
- Black or African American1.3% · 21,779
- Two or more races0.5% · 8,443
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 2,369
Gender
Gender distribution for Maria
Out of the 567,411 babies given the name Maria since 1880, 99.2% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Maria as a male name
- Ranked #9,520 in 2024
- 8 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1982 (116 births)
Maria as a female name
- Ranked #74 in 2024
- 3,105 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1964 (10,147 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Maria appears almost entirely female. Of the 1,652,966 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Maria: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Maria from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 89,313 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Maria by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Maria during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 0 | 1,732 | 1,732 |
| 1890s | 0 | 2,866 | 2,866 |
| 1900s | 0 | 4,174 | 4,174 |
| 1910s | 99 | 11,331 | 11,430 |
| 1920s | 311 | 22,584 | 22,895 |
| 1930s | 348 | 20,638 | 20,986 |
| 1940s | 305 | 35,571 | 35,876 |
| 1950s | 351 | 62,452 | 62,803 |
| 1960s | 470 | 88,843 | 89,313 |
| 1970s | 645 | 76,351 | 76,996 |
| 1980s | 936 | 65,776 | 66,712 |
| 1990s | 533 | 70,902 | 71,435 |
| 2000s | 184 | 57,001 | 57,185 |
| 2010s | 63 | 28,965 | 29,028 |
| 2020s | 27 | 13,953 | 13,980 |
Geography
Where Marias live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Texas, California, New York recorded the most babies named Maria, while Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 10,882 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Maria
The name Maria has its origins in the ancient Hebrew language, derived from the name Miryam or Miriam. It is a feminine form of the Hebrew root name "mar" meaning "bitter" or "beloved". This name was borne by the biblical figure of Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, and it gained immense popularity after the birth of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
Maria was a common name among early Christian families, as it was associated with the Virgin Mary, who was highly revered in the Catholic Church. The name spread throughout the Mediterranean region during the Roman Empire, and it became widely used in various European languages, such as Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
One of the earliest recorded mentions of the name Maria can be found in the Bible's Book of Exodus, referring to Miriam, the sister of Moses. In the New Testament, the name is prominently featured as the name of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, who plays a central role in the Christian faith.
Throughout history, numerous notable women have borne the name Maria. One of the earliest examples is Maria of Alania, a Georgian princess and queen consort of the Byzantine Empire, who lived in the 11th century. Another notable figure is Maria de' Medici, the Queen of France from 1600 to 1610, who played a significant role in the politics of her time.
In the realm of literature, Maria is the name of the protagonist in the famous novel "The Betrothed" by Alessandro Manzoni, published in 1827. This work is considered one of the masterpieces of Italian literature and has had a lasting impact on the cultural significance of the name.
Other famous women named Maria include Maria Theresa, the Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia from 1740 to 1780, who was a powerful and influential ruler of the Habsburg monarchy. Maria Sklodowska-Curie, born in 1867, was a pioneering physicist and chemist who conducted groundbreaking research on radioactivity and became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
Maria Montessori, born in 1870, was an Italian educator and physician who developed the Montessori method of education, which emphasizes child-centered learning and has had a profound impact on early childhood education worldwide.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Maria
People
Maria + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Maria as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Maria: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Maria?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 438,999 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Maria going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 781 US residents.
Is Maria a common name?
We classify Maria as "Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 567,411 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Maria most popular?
The single biggest year for Maria was 1964, when 10,196 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Maria is about 44 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Maria in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,652,964 people with the name Maria, or 547.29 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Maria in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Maria?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Maria appears almost entirely female. Of the 1,652,966 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Maria?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maria is Hispanic at 81.3%. The next largest groups are White (14.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Maria most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Maria in the 2020 Census, accounting for 81.3% (1,343,883 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Maria in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Maria a female name?
Yes, 99.2% of people registered as Maria in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Maria still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Maria in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Maria can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Maria?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.