Masha
In Russian, Masha is a diminutive of Maria. Also as in Ukrainian is a diminutive of Mariia or Mariya. It has been used as a nickname or as a pet name for women named Maria or Marie. An alternative spelling in the Latin alphabet is "Macha". In Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, "Maša" is a diminutive of "Marija" but can be a given name in its own right.
The Jewish name Masha is of Biblical extraction. Tradition has it that the first Masha was named after a departed male named Moshe.
Other diminutives of Maria
There are a large number of diminutives in Russian for Maria beside Masha:- Marusya
- Manya
- Manyunya
- Manyasha
- Mashunya
- Mashuta
- Mashenka
- Mar'ya
- Mashulya
- Mashka
Notable people
- Masha Bruskina, Soviet partisan of the Minsk Resistance
- Masha Dashkina Maddux, Ukrainian dancer
- Masha Gessen, Russian and American journalist and author
- Maria Kolenkina, Russian socialist revolutionary of the late 19th century
- Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, Russian conjoined twins
- Masha Lubelsky, Israeli politician
- Masha Ma, Chinese fashion designer
- Masha Rasputina, Russian pop singer
- Masha (singer) or Masha Shirin, Latvian-born American pop singer
- Marie Yovanovitch, American diplomat who served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Ukraine
- Maria "Masha Scream" Arkhipova, lead singer of the Russian folk metal band Arkona
- Maria Viktorovna, Russian-American YouTuber and ASMR performer
- Maria Vladimirovna "Masha" Alyokhina, Russian political activist and musician.
- Masha Efrosynina, Ukrainian television host
- Masha Kondratenko, Ukrainian pop singer
Fictional characters
- Masha, heroine of the Russian TV series Masha and the Bear
- Masha, heroine of Pushkin's novel The Captain's Daughter
- Masha, one of the title characters in The Three Sisters (play) by Anton Chekhov
- Masha, Ilya's and Polina's daughter in The Seagull, another Chekhov play
- Masha, in the Tokyo Mew Mew manga series
- Masha, part of Elizabeth's entourage in the film Young Frankenstein
- Masha, obsessed fan in The King of Comedy played by Sandra Bernhard
- Maria "Masha", title character in Hayden Kopser's novella Masha
- Masha Dmitrichenko, in the series Nine Perfect Strangers, based on the novel of the same name
- Maria "Masha" Mikhailovna Kujō, a character from the light nove/anime series Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian
- Marya "Masha" Morevna, main character in Deathless, a retelling of Russian folklore
- Masha Rostova, Elizabeth Keen's birth name in the TV series ''The Blacklist''