A form of Maryam, the Arabic and Hebrew tradition name associated with Mary, beloved or wished-for child.
Maryama is a West African variant of Mariam — itself the Arabic form of Miriam, one of the oldest and most traveled names in human history. The Hebrew Miriam appears in the Torah as the sister of Moses and Aaron, a prophetess who led the Israelite women in song after the crossing of the Red Sea; her name may derive from the Egyptian Mry ("beloved") or from the Hebrew root meaning "bitter sea" or "sea of sorrow." Through the Arabic Maryam — the name given to the Virgin Mary in the Quran, where she is the only woman named directly and the subject of an entire chapter (Surah Maryam) — the name became one of the most sacred in the Islamic world.
In West Africa, Maryama (also spelled Mariama or Mariyama) is particularly beloved among Muslim communities of Senegal, Guinea, Mali, and Sierra Leone, where it carries both Islamic reverence and deep local affection. The Guinean author Mariama Bâ, whose 1979 novel So Long a Letter became a landmark of African feminist literature and won the inaugural Noma Award, is perhaps the name's most celebrated modern bearer — her work giving it a dimension of intellectual courage and womanly solidarity that resonates far beyond the Francophone world. Maryama's extra syllable — compared to Mariam — gives it a musical quality that suits it to oral traditions and the call-and-response patterns of West African social life.
When spoken, it seems to invite the room to respond. It is a name that has crossed from ancient Semitic history through Islamic theology into the living culture of West Africa, and it has grown richer at every crossing.