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The popularity of the name Marina in Russia comes from religion, this is how the Greeks knew St. Margaret*. Marina is a Late Latin name, a feminine form of the family name Marines, a derivative of Marius, from Mars (God of War). It is NOT from the Latin adjective marines meaning of the sea, as is often quoted.

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*Margaret stems from the Greek word margarites meaning a pearl, from the Persian murvarid meaning child of light, hence a pearl. The Persians believed that oysters rose to the surface at night to worship the moon, upon opening they would captured the moonbeams, which in turn the pearls were made from.