Mara

The word Mara can mean:

Dentistry

• MARA An appliance mounted to the molars used to correct an over/underbite.

Zoology

• Mara (mammal) are a species of the cavy family

Demographics

• Mara people live in southern part of Mizoram, a state of the Republic of India and Chin State and Rakhine State of western part of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma
• Mara people (Australia) are an Australian Aboriginal tribe

People

Politics

• John Andrew Mara was a 19th politician, rancher and merchant in the Canadian province of British Columbia

Entertainment

• Mara Wilson (child actress)

Geography

1. Mara, Tanzania is an administrative region of Tanzania
2. Mara, Italy is an Italian commune in the province of Sassari in the island of Sardinia
3. Mara, South Africa is a small town in South Africa
4. Mara River is a river of Kenya and Tanzania
5. Masai Mara is reserve near the Mara River
6. Mara River (Romania) is a river in Romania
7. Mara, Spain is a municipality (pop. 199) in the Spanish province of Zaragoza or Saragossa, in the autonomous community of Aragon
8. Mara is the name carried by a number of dangerous gangs in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States of America. etc. (Example: Mara Salvatrucha or Mara 18), The Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18 have several thousand members, both gangs hate each other, kill each other. The Mara Salvatrucha is also known as MS and the other one as 18. They began among childrens of immigrants who fled Central America's civil wars. The MS and 18 were originally organized in L.A. in the mid 80s, the first one in the 13th Street and the second one in the 18th street and later spread out beyond the U.S.A. borders. Nowadays, Gangs (known as Maras) are one of Central America's most pressing problems, especially in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Gang members often run entire neighborhoods and are responsible for much of the region's violence and crime.

Religion/Mythology/Culture

1. Mara (demon) is a demon of the Buddhist cosmology
2. Mara (goddess) is a Goddess in Latvian mythology
3. Mara (folklore) is a creature in Germanic, particularly Scandinavian folklore, thought to cause nightmares.
4. Naomi called herself Mara, meaning "bitterness", after she suffered the deaths of her husband and her two sons, in the Bible
5. Mara (Sanskrit) is a Sanskrit and Pali word meaning death-bringing or the destroying
6. Deities in The Belgariad, Mara is the name of a God in David Eddings' The Belgariad and The Malloreon.
7. Mara is the nickname of Martti Ahtisaari, a career diplomat and former President of Finland
8. Mara is sometimes used as a nickname for Maria, in the Croatian language

Fiction

1. The Mara (Doctor Who) is the name of an evil being in two Doctor Who serials, Kinda and Snakedance.
2. Marller or Mara is a demon in the manga and anime series Oh My Goddess!
3. Mara Jade is the the name of a fictional character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe
4. Mara is the lead character in the Raymond E. Feist/Janny Wurts "Empire" Trilogy (Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire, Mistress of the Empire).
5. Mara is one of the two homeworlds of the Exotics in the Childe Cycle, written by Gordon R. Dickson
6. Mara is a Goddess in the video game series The Elder Scrolls, worshipped in nearly all the various religions as a mother goddess and goddess of love
7. Mara, Lord of Illusion is a powerful, yet minor character in Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light

Company

• Majlis Amanah Rakyat, literally People's Trust Council, is a government linked company in Malaysia.