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Mama or momma?

mama is a noun meaning “Synonym of mother (“a female parent”)”; momma is a noun meaning “Alternative spelling of mama”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) mama is about 6.8 times as common as momma.

mamaormomma

What is the difference between mama and momma?

mamamomma
Part of speechnoun, interjection, verbnoun
Meaning

CanadaUSSynonym of mother (“a female parent”)

CanadaUSSynonym of mother (“an origin, a source”)

USOften preceded by oh: used to express approval, joy, surprise, etc

A betel nut plus other ingredients (like areca nut, betel leaves, slaked lime, and tobacco) to be chewed on

ExampleI love the cookies which mama bakes me every weeknone recorded
Formsmamasmommas
Pronunciation/ˈmæmə/ /ˈmʌ-/ /məˈmɑː//ˈmɒmə/ /ˈmɑmə/
In writing17 times per million words2.6 times per million words

Sources: mama and momma in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Every current meaning of mama and momma

mama

  1. 1

    noun CanadaUSSynonym of mother (“a female parent”)

    I love the cookies which mama bakes me every week

  2. 2

    interjection USOften preceded by oh: used to express approval, joy, surprise, etc

  3. 3

    verb informalSynonym of mother (“to treat (someone) as a mother would be expected to treat her child; to nurture”)

  4. 4

    noun informalSynonym of mother (“a female parent”)

  5. 5

    noun CanadaUSSynonym of mother (“an origin, a source”)

  6. 6

    verb informalTo call out "mama"

  7. 7

    noun informalUsed as a (respectful) term of address for one's mother

  8. 8

    noun A lesbian partner

momma

  1. 1

    noun Alternative spelling of mama

  2. 2

    noun A betel nut plus other ingredients (like areca nut, betel leaves, slaked lime, and tobacco) to be chewed on

Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.

Which is more common, mama or momma?

mama appears 17 times per million words; momma 2.6 times per million words.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How many people search mama vs momma?

“mama vs momma” is searched about 590 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“momma vs mama”, “mama or momma”).

Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.

The words