The first María whom I can find of undoubted western birth was a Spanish maiden, who was martyred by the Moors at Cordova in 851.  Michaelis tells us that the old Spanish name of Urraca is the same as Maria, but this can hardly be true.  It seems to have been the devotion of the Crusaders that first brought Maria into Europe, for we find the first instances about the middle of the twelfth century all at once; Maria of Antioch, a Crusader's daughter, who married the Emperor Manuel Comnenus; her daughter, Maria Comnena, married to the Marquis of Montferrat;...
     Our Latin Maria is a late introduction, brought in by that taste which in the last century made everything feminine end with an a.
     It is only during the last three centuries that Maria has reigned supreme in Roman Catholic countries, marking the exaggerated devotion paid to the original.  Indeed, the Italian proverb, answering to the needle in a bottle of hay, is 'Cercar Maria in Ravenna,' so numerous are the Marias there. (Yonge)