Maurice

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Boy · Latin

Maurice

Say it: MOR-iss

Try it with your surname

Meaning

From Latin Mauritius 'Moorish, dark-skinned'.

Certainscholars agree on this meaning.

Introduced by the Normans, popular in Wales and Ireland.

Its wave through time

Fading since the 1910s

In the United States

00.511.5218801900192019401960198020002020Peak 1913per 1,000 babies of that sex
  • 137,714 babies given this name since 1880
  • At its height in 1914, about 1 in 521 boys
  • 263 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
  2. The Renaissance1400 to 1600
  3. Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
  4. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

EnglishFrenchWelshIrish

The family of the name

Other spellings: Morris

LatinMauritius
WelshMeurig
GermanMoritz

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
  • Medieval European charters and records
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.