Morris
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from the medieval personal name Maurice, from Latin Mauritius, derivative of Maurus
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/mɒɹɪs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Morris is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In the United Kingdom it is the 34th most common surname.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 682(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 794
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 802
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #263 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 613 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 682 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,600,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the medieval personal name Maurice, from Latin Mauritius, derivative of Maurus.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Morris, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Morris counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈1,600,000 est. | ≈1 in 872 | — | Morris | 37 |
| US United States | #54 | 318,884 | 1 in 1K | 319K | Morris | 613 |
| GB United Kingdom | #34 | ≈96,000 est. | ≈1 in 682 | — | Morris | 378 |
| CA Canada | #53 | ≈33,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 3 | Morris | 280 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Morris | 46 |
| AU Australia | #54 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 866 | 56 | Morris | 277 |
| IE Ireland | #41 | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 794 | — | Morris | 122 |
| NZ New Zealand | #47 | ≈6,100 est. | ≈1 in 802 | 10 | Morris | 158 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Morris is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, From the forename Maurice (Latin Mauricius ‘Moorish’), introduced by Norman settlers from the 11th century; Scots forms Moris and Morrice.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In French, English form related to Maurice; Lat. Mauritius.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
He became known as the “Financier of the Revolution” and was the founder of the Bank of North America. Despite his reputation, he was personally ruined by unwise (or unfortunate) speculation.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
from Maurice, an Old French personal name introduced to Britain by the Normans, Latin Mauritius, a derivative of Maurus (see Moore). This was the name of several early Christian saints. In some cases it may be a nickname of the same derivation for someone with a swarthy complexion.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Variant of Maurice. The spelling Morris was quite common as a given name in the Middle Ages, but it fell out of use and was readopted in modern times, in part from the surname earlier derived from the given name.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- William Morrisb. 1834GBBritish textile artist, author, and socialist (1834-1896)
- John Morrisb. 1926USAmerican film score composer (1928-2018)
- Jane Goodallb. 1934GBnot in their usual nameEnglish primatologist and anthropologist (1934–2025)
- Garrett Morrisb. 1937USAmerican actor
- Errol Morrisb. 1948USAmerican filmmaker and writer (born 1948)
- Stevie Wonderb. 1950USnot in their usual nameAmerican and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, composer and record producer (born 1950)
- Phil Morrisb. 1959USAmerican actor
- Kathryn Morrisb. 1969USAmerican actress
- John Morrisb. 1984USAmerican actor
- Heather Morrisb. 1987USAmerican actress, dancer, singer, and model
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 98 sources across 48 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 319K | #62 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 312K | #56 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 307K | #64 |
Reference works 9
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Morris?
- In the etymology graph, Moritz and Meuric are forms of the same name in other languages; Moe is a recorded short or pet form.
- What does the name Morris mean, and where does it come from?
- from the medieval personal name Maurice, from Latin Mauritius, derivative of Maurus. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Morris?
- A machine transcription gives /mɒɹɪs/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Morris have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.6 million people named Morris in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled morris.
- How common is the name Morris?
- In the United States, the national register counted 318,884 people named Morris in 2010, about 1 in 1.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Morris compared with other names?
- In the United Kingdom, Morris is the 34th most common surname of 1,272,424 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Morris?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/morrisThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Morris” — the 34th most common surname in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.