List of Famous people named Maria
María Jesús Ruiz
María Jesús Ruiz Garzón is a Spanish model winner of Miss Spain in 2004.
María Jesús Montero Cuadrado
María Jesús Montero Cuadrado, is a Spanish hospital administrator and politician of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) who has been serving as Minister of Finance under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez since 2018.
Maria Rita
Maria Rita is a Brazilian singer. Born Maria Rita Camargo Mariano, she is the daughter of famed pianist/arranger César Camargo Mariano and the late Brazilian singing legend Elis Regina and sister to Pedro Mariano and music producer João Marcelo Bôscoli. Her namesake is family friend and famed Brazilian rock legend Rita Lee. She studied at New York University, and worked as a journalist at a magazine for adolescents.
Maria Tallchief
Elizabeth Marie "Betty" Tallchief was an American ballerina. She was considered America's first major prima ballerina. She was the first Native American to hold the rank, and is said to have revolutionized ballet.
María Dolores de Cospedal
María Dolores Cospedal García is a Spanish politician. A member of the People's Party (PP), she served as President of Castile-La Mancha from 2011 to 2015 and as Minister of Defence of the Government of Spain from 2016 to 2018. She also was the PP's Secretary-General, second to party president Mariano Rajoy, from 2008 to 2018.
María Jiménez
María Jiménez Gallego is a popular Spanish singer, who started her career in tablaos (flamenco taverns like Las Brujas sponsored by La Pipa in the first years of Spanish democracy after Francisco Franco's dictatorship.
Maria II of Portugal
Dona Maria II "the Educator" or "the Good Mother", reigned as Queen of Portugal from 1826 to 1828, and again from 1834 to 1853. Born in Rio de Janeiro, she was the first child of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil and of his first wife, Empress Maria Leopoldina, and thus a member of the House of Braganza. One of the two surviving children born when Pedro was still heir apparent to Portugal, she inherited Portuguese titles and was placed in the line of succession to the former Portuguese throne, even after becoming a member of the Brazilian Imperial Family, from which she was excluded in 1835 after her definitive ascension to the Portuguese throne.
Maria Pitillo
Maria Pitillo is a former American actress. She has starred in films and on television, most notably as Audrey Timmonds in Godzilla (1998). She also had a recurring role on the TV series Providence.
Maria Riva
Maria Elizabeth Riva is an American actress, writer and activist. She worked on television in the 1950s. She is the daughter of actress Marlene Dietrich, about whom she published a memoir in 1992.
María Peláez
María Peláez Navarrete is a former butterfly swimmer from Spain, who competed at five consecutive Summer Olympics for her native country, starting in 1992. She won the silver medal in the 200 m butterfly at the 1999 European Aquatics Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, after gaining the title in the same event, two years earlier at the European Championships in Seville, Spain.