During Maria's lifetime, nationality did not play as significant a role in determining person's identity as it does today.[39][40] Nevertheless, multiple later sources felt the need to assign to Maria Cunitz a nationality relevant to their own time. She has mostly been described as German, for example in the Biographical Dictionary of Woman in Science.[41] She published in German. She has been also described as Polish[4][42][43] and some[4] consider her to be the first Polish woman astronomer.