Moses
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from the biblical Hebrew prophet’s name Moshe, probably of Egyptian origin
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/moʊzəs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Moses is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country, where it is the 29th most common given name.
- KEKenya≈1 in 309(inferred from the name graph)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 399
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 772
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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 492 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 309 (inferred from the name graph)
≈540,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Kenya, 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 biblical Hebrew prophet’s name Moshe, probably of Egyptian origin
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Moses 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | #29 | ≈540,000 est. | ≈1 in 399 | — | Moses | 138 |
| KE Kenya | #685 | ≈170,000 est. | ≈1 in 309 | 3 | Moses | 60 |
| CN China | — | ≈89,000 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Moses | 21 |
| ZA South Africa | #87 | ≈73,000 est. | ≈1 in 772 | — | Moses | 91 |
| TZ Tanzania | — | ≈68,000 est. | ≈1 in 859 | — | Moses | 32 |
| US United States | — | 28,165 | 1 in 12K | 39K | Moses | 492 |
| GH Ghana | #75 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Moses | 78 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Mzalendo Trust "Elections Watch" — 2022 gazetted election winners. 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)
Moses 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.
The Bible provides a folk etymology from the Hebrew verb 'mashah' (to draw out), signifying he was 'drawn out of the water.' Modern scholarship generally attributes the name to the Egyptian root 'msy' (child of/born), common in names like Thutmose or Ramesses.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A timeless name of Hebrew and Egyptian origin implying leadership, deliverance, and humility.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Egyptian/Hebrew; probably 'born of'; biblical leader who led the Israelites out of Egypt
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Biblical/Hebrew or Egyptian: 'saved from water' or 'child, son'.
as a nameAfrican Names
In German, from Hebr. Moscheh; probably Egyptian 'son'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
- Al-Hadib. 761IQnot in their usual nameArab Abbasid Caliph (r. 785-786)
- Moses Mendelssohnb. 1729DEGerman-Jewish philosopher and theologian (1729–1786)
- Marc Chagallb. 1887FRnot in their usual nameBelarusian-French artist (1887–1985)
- Moïse Kislingb. 1891PLnot in their usual namePolish-French artist (1891-1953)
- Moisei Ginzburgb. 1892RUnot in their usual nameRussian architect, Soviet writer (1892–1946)
- Joseph Rothb. 1894ATnot in their usual nameAustrian novelist and journalist (1894–1939)
- Moses Nagamootoob. 1947GYGuyanese politician and novelist
- Moses Maloneb. 1955USAmerican basketball player (1955–2015)
- Moses Ingramb. 1994USAmerican actress
- Bukayo Sakab. 2001GBnot in their usual nameEnglish footballer (born 2001)
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 116 sources across 62 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 28K | #1,304 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 583 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 122 | #1,304 |
Reference works 10
- 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)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 does the name Moses mean, and where does it come from?
- from the biblical Hebrew prophet’s name Moshe, probably of Egyptian origin Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Moses a male or female name?
- Moses is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Moses?
- In the etymology graph, Musa, Moshe and Moisés are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Moses have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 537 thousand people named Moses in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled moses.
- How do you pronounce Moses?
- A machine transcription gives /moʊzəs/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Moses?
- In the United States, the national register counted 28,165 people named Moses in 2020, about 1 in 12 thousand residents.
- How common is Moses compared with other names?
- In Nigeria, Moses is the 29th most common given name of 138,191 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Moses?
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/mosesThe 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, “Moses” — the 29th most common given name in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.