Maria written in the Arabic script, with pronunciation, a letter-by-letter breakdown, and the story behind the name.
Each Arabic letter below maps to part of the name — remember that Arabic reads right to left.
Maria is the Latin form of Miriam, a Hebrew name of debated meaning — "beloved," "wished-for child," and "drop of the sea" are all proposed. Arabic has its own ancient form of the same name: مريم (Maryam), the name of the mother of Jesus in the Quran.
The transliteration ماريا is used for the European name Maria, but Arabic also has مريم (Maryam) — the same name by ancestry, borne by an entire chapter of the Quran (Sūrat Maryam). Many Arab Christian and Muslim families use مريم, while ماريا signals the Western form.
Maria is written ماريا, reading right to left: mīm (م), alif (ا), rā (ر), yā (ي), and a final alif (ا). The yā carries the long ee sound of the middle syllable. Copy ماريا with the button at the top of this page.
They are two forms of the same ancient name. مريم (Maryam) is the native Arabic form, used in the Quran for the mother of Jesus, and is very common across the Arab world. ماريا is a phonetic transliteration of the Western form Maria. Choose مريم for the traditional Arabic name, ماريا to render the European spelling.
MAH-ree-yah, with long vowels on the first two syllables — Arabic alif and yā both stretch their vowels noticeably longer than English does. The r is a light tap, similar to Spanish.