During Maria's lifetime, nationality did not play as significant a role in determining person's identity as it does today. 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". She published in German. She has been also described as Polish and some consider her to be the first Polish woman astronomer. Cunitz spoke not only German and Polish but also French, Greek, Italian, Latin and Hebrew.