Marianna

We can approach the name Marianna from a couple different perspectives. Way back in the Middle Ages the female name Marian developed as a variant of Marion which was a French diminutive of Marie (English: Mary). The Norman-French brought Marion to England after the Norman Conquest in the 11th century where it was adopted as Marian (as evidenced by Maid Marian in the Tales of Robin Hood). Marianna could have been created later as an embellished form of Marian. Secondly, Marianna came into vogue in the late 19th century due to a fashionable trend which was emerging at the time whereby separate female names were combined to create one new name: Rosemary, Marianne, Ruthann, etc. In this case, Marianna is simply Mary + Anna. Lastly, Marianna is the English form of the Spanish Mariana which may have developed as the female form of an Old Roman family name Marianus – itself coming from either Mars (the Roman god of war) or the Latin word “mas” for “male” or “maris” meaning “sea”. Marianna is commonly used in Poland where it’s pronounced “mahr-YAHN-nah”.