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Moriah, or Moria, is a country village in South Africa which is the HQ of a large church whose members wear badges and travel there over Easter in enormous numbers.

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Mariah, to me, is the same as Maria, but the -h somehow indicates that it sounds like maREYEa instead of maREEa.

I knew a Moriah once. While I find the name visually more interesting than Mariah, Moriah did get her name misspelled a lot as Mariah. I imagine that must get annoying after a while.

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I also knew a Mariah once, kind person. It reflects the older English pronunciation of Maria, and I do prefer Mariah of the two today. However, the name itself still doesn't do much for me. Outside of maybe Marian (due to Robin Hood), I find most Mary-influenced names to be quite tired.

Beautiful names, both. I've heard Maria pronounced the same as Mariah a few times. So those two feel pretty linked. Moriah feels like a different name, but I think a lot of folks would link those two more closely. Mariah Carey kind of taints them both for me a bit, unfortunately.

Both are nice in their own right, but I see them as two entirely different names. Moriah is a biblical place name and I think it’s a really great name. Mariah I see as a version of Mary and find it very pretty, although Mariah Carey puts me off the name a bit.