Derived from the Aramaic honorific martā, meaning “lady” or “mistress,” and transmitted through Greek and Latin into the Western name stock, Marta evolved as the streamlined continental counterpart to English Martha, preserving in Spanish and Italian its clear final vowel (MAR-tah) while Anglo-American speech typically reduces that vowel to a schwa (MAR-tuh). United States vital-statistics records trace a measured ascent to a mid-twentieth-century peak just above the 400th rank, followed by a protracted decline that now stabilizes around the 860th position with roughly 60–90 newborn registrations per year, a demographic pattern that labels the name recognizable yet conspicuously under-used. Cultural associations, therefore, arise less from ubiquity than from prominent individual bearers—such as Brazilian football icon Marta Vieira da Silva and American screenwriter Marta Kauffman—whose public profiles confer on the name an aura of disciplined excellence and cosmopolitan sophistication while insulating it from the volatility inherent in trend-driven naming cycles.
| Marta Menegatti is an Italian Olympic beach volleyball player and European champion who has won multiple World Tour medals. |
| Marta Mirazon Lahr is a palaeoanthropologist who directs the Duckworth Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. |
| Marta Kostyuk is a Ukrainian professional tennis player known for winning three WTA singles titles and reaching two Grand Slam semifinals. |
| Marta Eggerth was a Hungarian-American actress and singer celebrated for her work during the Silver Age of Operetta. |
| Marta Lucía Ramírez - Marta Lucia Ramirez is a Colombian lawyer and politician who became the country's first female vice president in 2018. |
| Marta Susana Robles Gutierrez is a Spanish journalist and writer. |
| Marta Macho Stadler is a Basque mathematician, educator and science communicator recognized for promoting women in science. |
| Marta Sánchez - Marta Sanchez Lopez is a Spanish singer who has sold over 10 million albums. |
| Marta Bastianelli is a former Italian professional cyclist who won world and European road racing titles. |
| Marta Cartabia is an Italian jurist who served as Minister of Justice and President of Italy's Constitutional Court. |
| Marta Dusseldorp is an Australian actress known for her roles in BlackJack, Crownies, Jack Irish and A Place to Call Home. |
| Marta Steinsvik was a Norwegian author and translator who championed women's rights and Nynorsk while promoting antisemitism and anti-Catholicism. |
| Marta Yolanda Díaz-Durán - Marta Yolanda Diaz-Duran Alvarado is a Guatemalan entrepreneur, journalist, and professor known for defending freedom of expression. |
| Marta Casals Istomin is a Puerto Rican musician who led the Manhattan School of Music and served as artistic director of the Kennedy Center. |