Moises
- Pronunciation
- [Moi-ses]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Spanish Form Of Moses From The Water
- Origin
- Spanish
About the Name Moises
Moises is the Spanish form of Moses, descending from the Hebrew Moshe meaning "drawn out" — referring to the biblical Moses being drawn out of the Nile River by Pharaoh's daughter (Exodus 2:10). Moses is one of the most-foundational figures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — the Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of Egypt, received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and led the Israelites to the borders of the Promised Land.
Notable bearers include American basketball star Moses Malone (using the longer formal Moses; 1955–2015, the iconic African-American NBA Hall of Famer); American jazz musician Moisés Patron; contemporary American actor Moisés Arias (born 1994, the American actor of Disney Channel's Hannah Montana); and the iconic American politician Moisés Castro.
Moises has been continuously used in Spanish-speaking American communities for over a century. The name climbed into the US top 300 boys' rank by 2008 and held the top 300 since, driven primarily by Spanish-language naming influence. The name's appeal is its layered Hebrew-Spanish-Catholic-prophetic pedigree combined with two firm syllables — the in-built Moses-foundational-prophet religious anchor, the strong Spanish-Catholic cultural register, and tonal warmth distinctive to Spanish-language naming. The name reads as both classical-religious and contemporary American. Common nicknames Moy (the dominant short form, casual and warm), Moe (the related shorter form, a popular standalone name on its own), Moisi, and the rare Moy each carry distinct registers; international forms include Moses (English/German), Moisés (Spanish/Portuguese, with accent, identical), Moïse (French, with diaeresis), Mosè (Italian, with accent), Musa (Arabic), and the original Hebrew Moshe.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Moises
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Moises by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2001 with 912 boys named Moises (boy rank #308 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #587 for boys (502 US births). That's 279 places below its 2001 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Moises Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Moises the strongest states are California, Texas, Nevada.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #270 | 1,460 |
| 2 | Texas | #332 | 1,014 |
| 3 | Nevada | #369 | 85 |
| 4 | New Mexico | #370 | 24 |
| 5 | Nebraska | #383 | 35 |
| 6 | Idaho | #420 | 17 |
| 7 | Florida | #452 | 353 |
| 8 | Arizona | #459 | 151 |
| 9 | Washington | #468 | 146 |
| 10 | New Jersey | #534 | 133 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tennessee | #782 | 66 |
| 2 | Indiana | #755 | 74 |
| 3 | Pennsylvania | #742 | 69 |
| 4 | Utah | #732 | 25 |
| 5 | Alabama | #709 | 43 |
| 6 | Virginia | #688 | 88 |
| 7 | Louisiana | #664 | 22 |
| 8 | Colorado | #630 | 73 |
| 9 | Georgia | #625 | 145 |
| 10 | Massachusetts | #625 | 61 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Moises in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Moises?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Moises to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Moises against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).