In Russian, Masha (Маша) is a diminutive of Maria. Also as in Ukrainian is a diminutive of Mariia or Mariya. It has been used as a nickname or as a pet name for women named Maria or Marie. An alternative spelling in the Latin alphabet is "Macha". In Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, "Maša" is a diminutive of "Marija" but can be a given name in its own right.

The Jewish name Masha (מַשה)^[1] is of Biblical extraction. Tradition has it that the first Masha was named after a departed male named Moshe (Moses).

There are a large number of diminutives (nicknames) in Russian for Maria beside Masha:

• Marusya (Маруся)
• Manya (Маня)
• Manyunya (Манюня)
• Manyasha (Маняша)
• Mashunya (Машуня)
• Mashuta (Машута)
• Mashenka (Машенька)
• Mar'ya (Марья)
• Mashulya (Машуля)
• Mashka (Машка)

• Masha Bruskina (1924–1941), Soviet partisan of the Minsk Resistance
• Masha Dashkina Maddux, Ukrainian dancer
• Masha Gessen (born 1967), Russian and American journalist and author
• Maria Kolenkina, Russian socialist revolutionary of the late 19th century
• Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova (1950–2003), Russian conjoined twins
• Masha Lubelsky (born 1936), Israeli politician
• Masha Ma, Chinese fashion designer
• Masha Rasputina (born 1964), Russian pop singer
• Masha (singer) or Masha Shirin (born 1990 or 1991), Latvian-born American pop singer
• Marie Yovanovitch (born 1958), American diplomat who served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Ukraine
• Maria "Masha Scream" Arkhipova (born 1983), lead singer of the Russian folk metal band Arkona
• Maria Viktorovna (born 1986), Russian-American YouTuber and ASMR performer
• Maria Vladimirovna "Masha" Alyokhina (born 1988), Russian political activist and musician.
• Masha Efrosynina (born 1979), Ukrainian television host
• Masha Kondratenko (born 1999), Ukrainian pop singer

• Masha, heroine of the Russian TV series Masha and the Bear
• Masha, heroine of Pushkin's novel The Captain's Daughter
• Masha, one of the title characters in The Three Sisters (play) by Anton Chekhov
• Masha, Ilya's and Polina's daughter in The Seagull, another Chekhov play
• Masha, in the Tokyo Mew Mew manga series
• Masha, part of Elizabeth's entourage in the film Young Frankenstein
• Masha, obsessed fan in The King of Comedy (1983) played by Sandra Bernhard
• Maria "Masha", title character in Hayden Kopser's novella Masha (2021)
• Masha Dmitrichenko, in the series Nine Perfect Strangers, based on the novel of the same name
• Maria "Masha" Mikhailovna Kujō, a character from the light nove/anime series Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian
• Marya "Masha" Morevna, main character in Deathless, a retelling of Russian folklore
• Masha Rostova, Elizabeth Keen's birth name in the TV series The Blacklist