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Mama or mumma?

mama is a noun meaning “Synonym of mother (“a female parent”)”; mumma 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 141 times as common as mumma.

mamaormumma

What is the difference between mama and mumma?

mamamumma
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

Alternative spelling of mama

ExampleI love the cookies which mama bakes me every weeknone recorded
Formsmamasmummas
Pronunciation/ˈmæmə/ /ˈmʌ-/ /məˈmɑː/not recorded
In writing17 times per million wordsabout once in every 8 million words

Sources: mama and mumma 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 mumma

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

mumma

  1. 1

    noun Alternative spelling of mama

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 mumma?

mama appears 17 times per million words; mumma about once in every 8 million words.

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

The words