Moses
- Pronunciation
- [Mo-ses]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Saved From The Water
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Moses
Moses descends 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 (Exodus 20), and led the Israelites through the desert to the borders of the Promised Land.
Notable bearers include the iconic American basketball player Moses Malone (1955–2015, the iconic African-American NBA Hall of Famer who, in 1974, became the first player to enter the NBA directly out of high school); American journalist Moses Wright; the iconic Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo, Moses (1513–1515, in Rome's San Pietro in Vincoli, one of Michelangelo's iconic sculptures); and the contemporary American basketball player Moses Brown (born 1999).
Moses's American climb is part of the broader 21st-century return to Old Testament boys' names alongside Solomon, Asher, Isaiah, and Ezra. The name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Jewish-American, Christian-American, African-American, and Mormon-American naming. The name's appeal is its layered Hebrew-Old Testament-foundational-prophet pedigree combined with two firm syllables — the in-built drawn-out-of-water etymological register, the strong Moses-as-foundational-prophet religious anchor, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-biblical and contemporary American. Common nicknames Moe (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm — also a popular standalone name on its own), Mose, and the rare Moses-bear each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Moses (the historical English spelling), Moisés (Spanish/Portuguese), and Mose have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Moshe (Hebrew original), Moisés (Spanish/Portuguese), Moïse (French), Mosè (Italian), Musa (Arabic), and the original Hebrew Moshe.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Moses
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Moses by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2016 with 669 boys named Moses (boy rank #460 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #515 for boys (583 US births). That's 55 places below its 2016 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 Moses 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 Moses the strongest states are Hawaii, New Mexico, New York.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | #261 | 16 |
| 2 | New Mexico | #311 | 36 |
| 3 | New York | #356 | 469 |
| 4 | Idaho | #397 | 24 |
| 5 | Washington | #404 | 172 |
| 6 | California | #406 | 802 |
| 7 | Connecticut | #416 | 22 |
| 8 | Colorado | #427 | 132 |
| 9 | Texas | #449 | 667 |
| 10 | Nebraska | #453 | 22 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | #722 | 31 |
| 2 | Illinois | #695 | 126 |
| 3 | Minnesota | #693 | 67 |
| 4 | North Carolina | #661 | 128 |
| 5 | Oklahoma | #645 | 48 |
| 6 | Tennessee | #644 | 94 |
| 7 | South Carolina | #619 | 55 |
| 8 | Maryland | #618 | 67 |
| 9 | Utah | #613 | 55 |
| 10 | Georgia | #612 | 144 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Moses in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Moses
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Moses.
- Moses is regarded as the most prominent Hebrew religious leader of the ancient era.
Looking for names like Moses?
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 Moses to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Moses 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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