Maritza

Commenters seem to think that Latin Americans got this name from a Balkan river or from a Slavic and Hungarian name, but that part of the world has had little to no influence in Latin America. As someone with Spanish and Latin American ancestry this association to these faraway places that had no major immigration to Latin American countries seems like a reach.

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Spanish is a Romance language with foundations in Latin. Mar in Spanish means sea and its root is the Latin word mare, also meaning sea. The names Martisa and Marica begin with mar because they are also rooted from the Latin mare. These names, including Maritza are derived from the name Maria. The name Maria is of Latin origin and its meaning is associated with the sea. In Latin America and Spain it's really common to shorten Maria into Mar or Mari and combine it with another name, which most likely happened in this case. Maritza may be a form of Marissa/Marisa which means 'of the sea' in Italian. In Spanish Marisa is also a combination of Maria Isabel and Maria Luisa. According to a google search, Maritsa with an S is a Latin word meaning star of the sea. This is supported by the fact that mar derives from mare. Just by pronouncing it you can clearly tell it's a latinized word. If Maritza originated from Maritsa it's because of it's Latin origin and not a Balkan origin. Somewhere along the way Latin Americans changed the S to a Z. The S is pronounced like a Z by Spaniards, which influences the spelling of some words. The name may have been used by Spaniards in Latin America, stuck around there, but never became common back in Spain. Or the more common Marita in Spain somehow ended up as Maritza in Latin America.

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Since Maritsa means star of the sea it makes sense to name a river this. The Balkan languages borrowed it from Latin but it isn't exclusively theirs. Since Spanish is the one that is derived from Latin, Latin Americans did not take this name from the Balkans or Slavs, it's actually the other way around.

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Latin influenced Europe and much of the world, so non-Latin languages heavily borrowed from it, and in turn, there are going to be names from different countries that have similarities. Especially names derived from the name Maria, which is the most common female name throughout most of the world, with each country having its own spelling variations.

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I'd also like to add that the word Itza is Mayan. The Mayans are indigenous to Central America and parts of Mexico. Itza is a Mayan ethnic group and the word Itza most likely means 'water magician' or 'enchanted waters' in the Itza Mayan language. Petén Itza is a lake in Guatemala as well as a former Mayan kingdom. Chichén Itza was a large pre-Columbian city in Mexico. It may be unlikely, but it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume this name is a mixture of Spanish and Mayan, especially since both parts of the name involve water. This could explain why the name is common in Latin America and not Spain. Unlike the Balkans or Slavs, Mayan culture had an actual influence on Latin Americans, specifically in Mexico and Central America.

I am sure that the similarity between Maritza and the Mayan word Itza is one influence on how this name became popular in Latin America. However, it just isn't true that there has been no influence of Balkan cultures in Latin America. Latin American countries have received immigrants from all over the world, just like the United States and Canada have. There is actually a Wikipedia page at the moment about Hungarian-Mexicans, and another about Serbs in South America. Also, the Hawaiian name Leilani has been used a great deal in Latin America since the song "Sweet Leilani" became internationally famous, without there being any other major Hawaiian influence in Latin America. So there is no reason why the Slavic diminutive of Maria couldn't have been adopted in Latin America in the same way. It is precisely because Spanish speakers in Latin America were used to blending Maria with many other endings that they would have readily accepted the Slavic or Hungarian diminutive into their naming pattern once they heard it. [noted -ed]

This name did not originate in Latin America and therefore is not of Spanish origin. This name comes from around the Thrace region, as it refers back to the Balkan river Maritza, and has been used as a name there long before its use in Latin America.

This is most probably a respelling in Latin America of the Slavic and Hungarian name Marica. As another poster mentioned below, this is usually pronounced like "Maritsa" because in Croatian and Hungarian, the letter "c" is pronounced like English "ts".

Means "of the sea".