Meaning and background
The story behind Mara
Mara has a Hebrew biblical route with a bitter sense, but that is not the only documented history of this spelling. A separate entry records Hungarian and South Slavic forms related to Mária or Marija. Assigning bitterness to every Mara would therefore be misleading, quite apart from treating a word meaning as a personality judgement. An owner choosing the name for a dog can keep the intended cultural or personal connection explicit. Its short written form does not remove the need to distinguish those different name families.
- Origin
- Hebrew Mara has a bitter sense; separate Hungarian and South Slavic forms relate to Mária or Marija. Source · Source 2
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About Mara
Recorded as a dog’s name
Mara appears in 5 dog licence records in the 2026 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
Pronunciation and rhythm
/mɑɹə/
US English sound sequence, converted from the CMU dictionary. Stress marks are shown separately.
Stress on the first syllable in the recorded US readings.
View dictionary notation
/mɑɹə/ · primary stress on syllable 1M AA1 R AH0
These are US dictionary readings. Personal, regional and other language pronunciations may differ.
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Sources and research notes (2)
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — extract_year 2026 — Dog licence periods, not unique dogs; NYC only. No owner-level fields retrieved.
- Carnegie Mellon University / CMU Sphinx maintainers CMU US English Pronouncing Dictionary — US English dictionary readings; not owner-specific or exhaustive multilingual pronunciation
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.