The article touches on the problems of how religious names function in Polish anthroponymy. It includes analysis of how the name Maria functions as a religious name. Religious names of 19 Polish women’s religious orders, all assigned between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, were analysed (includes lists of the names of the religious orders in which sisters changed their names, and where the name Maria, or other names under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, were used). The function of the name Maria as a female monastic name largely depends on the given assembly and its spirituality. Looking diachronically at the use of particular names, one can say that even within the orders there was some kind of religious taboo about assigning the name Maria, in a way similar to that existing in the laity naming (although it did not concern all orders to the same extent).
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