MariavsmarksWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Maria is a name, marks is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Maria” is a name and “marks” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,301
“Maria” frequency rank
#25,230
“marks” frequency rank
26531
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Maria marks
Definition weiblicher Vorname 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs mark

Letter map: Maria vs marks

Shared letters muted; letters that set Maria and marks apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
Maria
5 ch
marks

Grammar separator: Maria vs marks

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Maria is aname and marksaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26531, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Maria is recorded at frequency rank #1,301, classified as aname, pronounced [maˈʁiːa]. marks is at rank #25,230, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 26531, this pair ranks #1,816,591 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Maria vs marks

Shared letters: amr. Private to "Maria": i. Private to "marks": ks.

"Maria" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "marks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mariaamria · maira · marai · marria · mmaria · mraia
  • marksamrks · makrs · markks · markss · marrks · marsk · mmarks · mraks

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Maria" and "marks" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Maria" is a name and "marks" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Maria" or "marks" show up more?
"Maria" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,301 in our German list, against #25,230 for "marks". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "Maria" vs "marks" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Maria" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,816,591 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Maria" and "marks" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marks vs puzzles". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,816,591 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list