Maru

Maru may refer to:

People

 * Maru (given name), a Spanish given name, a shortened form of Maria Eugenia
 * Maru (surname), a surname of Indic origin
 * Maru Sira (died 1975), a Sri Lankan criminal who was executed
 * Maru (mythology), a Māori war god
 * Ngāti Maru (disambiguation), several Māori tribes of New Zealand
 * Piper Maru Anderson-Klotz, daughter of actress Gillian Anderson

Places

 * Maru, Estonia, village in Halliste Parish, Viljandi County, Estonia
 * Maru (Irbid), village in Irbid, Jordan
 * Maru, Iran (disambiguation)
 * Maru, Kathmandu, a market and ceremonial square in Kathmandu, Nepal
 * Maru, Nigeria, Local Government Area in Zamfara State
 * Maru, Shwegu, a village in Shwegu Township in Bhamo District in the Kachin State of north-eastern Burma
 * Maru-Aten, a palace or sun-temple in Armarna, Egypt
 * Maru Pradesh, a region in the Indian state of Rajasthan
 * Mount Maru (disambiguation) (丸山), the name for several mountains on Hokkaidō, Japan

Language

 * In Japanese maru (kanji: 丸, hiragana: まる), means "circle" ( or ). Depending on context, this might refer to:
 * Marujirushi (丸印, correct mark); the opposite of batsu (×)
 * One layer in a kuruwa, a Japanese castle wall system
 * Handakuten (半濁点, a Japanese diacritical mark ( ゜) used in kana to change an h to a p
 * Kuten (句点), a japanese punctuation mark (. ) for the end-of-sentence full stop
 * The digit zero, similar to "oh" in English
 * A Japanese suffix for the names of young boys, swords, and ships (for a list of ships, see below)
 * Distinct from ensō (円相), which is a hand-drawn calligraphic circle which may be open or closed.
 * Maru language, one of several languages spoken among the Kachin people in Myanmar/Burma and China

Media and entertainment

 * Maru, a novel by Bessie Head
 * Maru (cat), Japanese Internet celebrity cat
 * Maru's Mission, an action video game released in 1991 by Jaleco
 * Maru Piravi, an Indian Tamil film
 * Eureka Maru, a fictional starship from the television show Andromeda
 * Kobayashi Maru, training exercise in the films Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Star Trek (2009)
 * "Piper Maru", episode 3x15 of The X-Files
 * Piper Maru, the name of an icebreaker in the film Alien vs. Predator
 * Boko-maru, supreme act of worship in Vonnegut's fictional Bokononism

Ships

 * The word maru is a common suffix to Japanese ship names. See Japanese ship-naming conventions. Notable examples include:
 * Daigo Fukuryū Maru, a fishing vessel exposed to radiation from a US nuclear test in 1954
 * Ehime Maru, a fishing training ship that collided with the USS Greeneville in 2001
 * Hashidate Maru, a Japanese oil tanker converted to factory whaling ship
 * SS Komagata Maru, a Japanese steam liner denied entry to Vancouver, Canada, in 1914
 * SS Montevideo Maru, a Japanese ship sunk in World War II, resulting in the loss of large numbers of Australian prisoners of war and civilians and Australia's worst maritime disaster
 * Nippon Maru, flagship of daimyō Toyotomi Hideyoshi's 16th century fleet
 * Nunobiki Maru, Japanese steamship known mainly for her attempted delivery of arms to the Philippines
 * Nisshin Maru, a Japanese whaling ship involved in collisions with Greenpeace vessels in 1999 and 2006, and with Sea Shepherd ships in 2013
 * No. 23 Nittō Maru, a patrol boat sunk after it encountered the USS Hornet (CV-8), causing the early launch of the Doolittle Raid
 * Ryou-Un Maru, a Japanese fishing boat washed away from her moorings after the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami, and deliberately sunk on 5 April 2012 after entering U.S. waters off the coast of Alaska
 * SS Shinyō Maru (1911), a liner in service between 1911 and 1936
 * SS Shin'yō Maru, a cargo ship that served as a hell ship, which transferred prisoners of war during World War II
 * The Shin'yō Maru incident, in which the ship was sunk by the USS Paddle in September 1944
 * MV Tatsuta Maru, a Japanese troopship sunk in 1943
 * The maru code (JN-39) was a World War II code used by Japanese merchant ships.

Other uses

 * Alternate term for maduvu, a weapon of Silambam, Tamil martial arts
 * Maru, one of the ragas of the Sikh religion
 * Maru OS, a Desktop Operating System to be installed on Smartphones and based on Android / LineageOS.