Maria (Final Fantasy II)

Maria is one of Firion's two permanent allies and is a playable character in Final Fantasy II. She is Leon's sister, but the two are separated at the very beginning of the game. Maria's vocal sounds in the PlayStation remake Final Fantasy Origins was provided by Noriko Shitaya, who later on provided the voice of Rydia in the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV.

Story
Maria's parents were killed during the empire's strike against Fynn. This gave her a good reason for not being able to go home after being taken in by the princess of Altair, Hilda. Firion asked if the three of them (Firion, Maria, and Guy) could join the rebel army. After they were refused, Maria made the statement that they could not go home because Fynn had been taken over by the empire and that their parents had been killed. After that, Hilda gave them the rebel password Wild Rose and allowed them to stay in Altair. Maria, throughout the game, wants to defeat the empire but also find her lost brother, Leon, that has been separate from her because of the attack of the empire against Fynn.

She is later shocked to learn that one of the Emperor's servants, the Dark Knight, is actually Leon. When Leon attempts to crown himself Emperor after the original Emperor's first death, Maria accompanies Firion to confront him. However, the original Emperor returns from the dead, and Leon is forced to give up all dreams of ruling. After the return of the Dark Emperor, Maria, Firion, Guy, and now Leon head to Pandaemonium, the fortress of the Lord of Hell that had come to surface from Hell thanks to the powers of the Dark Emperor to stop him. When the party face the Dark Emperor, he is finally defeated. After that, Leon separates from the party, Maria does not want to separate from him again and tries to stop him from leaving but Firion stops her, saying that when Leon is ready to come back he will be welcome.

Stats and Traits
Maria's starting equipment is a bow and her clothes. Out of the three starting characters Maria has the most Intelligence, making her suited to be made into a Black Mage by teaching her many offensive spells. She has the least Attack and HP among the three starting characters, and as her Stamina is lower than Firion or Guy's her HP will grow slower than theirs. On the up side her Agility is the highest, so she will often get first attack in battle early in the game.

Trivia

 * Maria is the first obviously female playable character in the series since the playable characters from the first Final Fantasy had no designated genders.

Etymology
Maria is a female (but occasionally male) given name in many diverse cultures, including African, Arab, Armenian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, English, German, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian, Pakistani, Serbian, Swedish, and Spanish.

It became popular with the spread of Christianity as a Latinized form of the Hebrew name of Jesus' mother Mary (Miriam in Hebrew). The meaning of the name is uncertain, but it may originally be an Egyptian name, probably derived from mry "beloved" or mr "love" ("eminent lady" or "beloved lady"), although it was used in Europe even before the establishment of Christianity as a female form of the Roman name Marius.