The title names the couple whose story runs through the book: the Master, a nameless writer who composed a novel about Pontius Pilate, and Margarita, the woman who loves him and goes to fetch him. It is through them that the satire of Moscow and the novel about Pilate meet.
The two enter late. The Master appears only in chapter 13, titled "The Hero Appears," and he refuses his own name: "I renounced my name, as I renounced everything in life." He introduces himself by his title, "I am a Master," and tells Ivan that it was the beloved who began calling him that, while she read the novel he was writing in a basement near the Arbat. She is presented by name only in chapter 19, which opens Part Two and is titled "Margarita."
From then on, Margarita drives the action: she accepts the retinue's invitation, becomes a witch, presides over Satan's ball, and, as payment, asks for the Master back. Her name weighs within the story, because, according to Korovyov, the hostess of the ball must be called Margarita and be a native of the city.
The title puts side by side a man who gave up his name and a woman whose name was a condition for being chosen. The book ends with the two together, on the way to the eternal home, and with the Master's memory beginning to fade right after he finishes his own novel.