Maria
- I've always loved this name, it is classic, beautiful, and has an awesome song =)
- Maria de la Paz: One of the many names for the Virgin Mary, 'Maria de la Paz' means 'Mary of the Peace.' Besides the obvious Maria, a girl could be called Paz -- a short, elegant name, a little mysterious and maybe even a bit playful.
- Maria Isabel: My husband is hispanic, so I wanted a hispanic name to go with his culture. I think Isabel is a beautiful, feminine name. I chose Maria because that is the name of my husband's mother, and my mother's name is Mary (the english version of Maria), so I thought it would only be fitting that my daughter have that name. Following the hispanic naming tradition, she would be called Isabel and Maria would function as our middle names do, there, but not really used everyday.
Maria is the Latin form of Mary, which is also used in multiple European languages. It is possible that Maria began as a feminine form of Marius, which stems from the Roman god Mars, rather than Miriyam (where the English Mary comes from). However, Maria has been taken as the Latin form of Mary since very early times, and owes its popularity to that fact.