Vladimir Putin's Daughter 'Maria Putina' Is Weirdly Misspelled As 'Mariya Putina' In Every Online Search Engine Including Google

Get your naming facts straight. Or, just some of it... Learn here, why Maria Putina is called by Mariya Putina all over the world.

It's a little complicated thing to juggle with words of different languages, and Russian is one of the most difficult languages to speak and use. But during the course of learning, you might find it a little easier than expected. Besides, the Russian accent is absolutely adored everywhere. So, give it a try.

The people names are also a little confusing to translate from Russian to English, but most times, any translation is correct. The consonants and vowels are almost nonidentical in both languages, so it is hard to distinguish the correct letters to use for a Russian alphabet. When the name of Vladimir Putin's daughter comes up, we have two variations in English for the one Russian name, Мария Путина — Maria Putina & Mariya Putina

Source: Ivan Sekretarev, AP file

Maria Putina is the eldest daughter of the Russian President who was named after her grandmother, Masha. It seems pretty clear that her name is spelled as Maria in English. But why do people everywhere else besides Russia (and some related countries with Russian as their root language), including the Google search engine call her by 'Mariya Putina' instead?

Source: Google

You'd get many wiki articles for Mariya Putina, but you maybe missing some news about her if you don't get her English name right.

Maria Putina will get you nowhere near anything about her. Instead, Google suggests a different person, a spy named Maria Butina who is not related at all. Although interestingly, the quick facts about Mariya Putina is always shown at the right side of the search page. 

Occum's Razor. It means the answer is most often the simplest one — because, that's how the Russians pronounce it. There is actually a short list of names that Russian babies are named after; about 20 names each for boys and girls. Maria's definitely from one of them, but it must have been a little longer, according to their traditions.

Typically, the Russian culture for names is to shorten them to a diminutive, so that they contain more vowels and sound a little softer. In addition to that, each vowel in the name would commonly be separated by a consonant, and thus it would be of even number of letters. That is where the 'y' in Mariya appears from.

Of course, it's the Russians that are allowed (not strictly) to appropriately pronounce Мария that way, including the 'y' in English pronunciation. English is always borrowing words from other languages all the time, but Maria is something that is already there. And it seems strange to add another name to the name-dictionary by adding one letter to an existing one.

To simplify it all — try translating Mariya from English to Russian, you get the word to be Russian already (because well, it is in terms of its phonetic symbols), but type in Maria, and the English name is finally written phonetically as Mariya in Russian or in correct alphabets, Мария.

Sources: Google Translate

Ignore Google's suggestion of Maria Butina, it's natural. But here's a more absolute proof why the Russian president's daughter should be called by Maria in non-native Russian countries:

Source: Google Translate

Maria Butina is correctly called in English. Another great example is the Russian tennis player, Maria Sharapova, which is never spelled out as Mariya. So, why leave out Maria Putina.

The accurate way to write Putina's name is 'Maria Putina' in English and 'Mariya Putina' if you're writing something in Romanized Russian. In true Russian, its Мария Путина.

End of discussion? In most common English speaking countries, people often get confused about why Russian girls have an extra 'a' in their last name. Some even consider it wrong. When commonly borrowing the last name from the father, it is their tradition to distinguish boys and girls with an 'a' at the end of their last name. If we go with that again, Maria's name is even shortened to 'Maria Putin'.

Still, we are not allowed to use Putin as Maria's last name. Since the Russians explicitly add an 'a' at the end of their surname, we shall respect that tradition as well. For Мария, they don't modify the name in any way, so its best to keep using Maria instead of Mariya.

Watch: All About Russian Names, Including The Guy's Sister - Maria!

If you're still confused and not getting how her actual English name should be spelled, it is 'Maria Putina'. A few news outlets are correctly using the name Maria Putina, most notably this site. But everywhere else, you'd only find Mariya.

Besides, since Maria is already married to a Dutch Jorrit Faassen, it may be easier to find her with that surname. Her actual name would be Maria Vladimirovna Faassen.