Morris
- Pronunciation
- [Mo-rris]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Son Of More
- Origin
- English
About the Name Morris
Morris is an English and Welsh surname derived from Maurice, which traces back through French Maurice to the Latin Mauritius, a name associated with the Moors — the people of North African origin — from Maurus, meaning "dark" or "dark-skinned." The surname tradition gave Morris its second life as a given name through a patronymic function, where it served as the English form of Maurice in Welsh and English-border communities where the name had deep roots. It carries a solid, unpretentious character typical of English surname-turned-forename names.
Morris first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1906 and peaked in 1912 at rank #82, a period when it was among the names used during the heavy immigration era when anglicized or English-adjacent names were in broad use. It last appeared in the top-1000 in 1919 at rank #100 with 1,660 births, accumulating nearly 12,000 top-1000 births across its chart span. Recorded variants include Mo, Moe, Morey, Moritz, Morrison, and Morse, a wide family that spans informal nicknames, Germanic cognates, and English surname derivatives.
Morris has the character of a name that peaked in the early twentieth century and now occupies a vintage niche — familiar enough to be recognizable, rare enough to feel distinctive. Its long association with the English and Welsh naming tradition gives it an unpretentious dignity that has kept it in intermittent use well beyond its chart years.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Morris
US Popularity History (1906–1919)
Annual US births named Morris by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1915 with 1,660 boys named Morris (boy rank #93 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1919, ranked #100 for boys (1,660 US births). That's 7 places below its 1915 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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Variant Forms
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Compare Morris to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Morris against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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