Maurissa
Feminine · “A feminine built on Maurice”
Maurissa builds a girl's name on Maurice with the -issa ending of Marissa and Melissa, and it keeps the name's old root, Latin Maurus, 'a Moor'. That root has named an Indian Ocean island and the fastest ship on the Atlantic for two decades.
How old is the name Maurissa?
Maurissa first appears in US birth records in 1968 — 57 years ago. The typical Maurissa alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 600 people named Maurissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maurissa most popular?
Maurissa peaked in 1993, reaching #2489 nationally. See the whole 1993 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Maurus to Maurissa
The story of Maurissa
Maurice spread through Europe with the cult of Saint Maurice, and in the Netherlands it was the name of Prince Maurice of Nassau; when Dutch sailors landed on an uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean in 1598, they named it Mauritius in his honor. The old Roman province of Mauretania gave its name to a Cunard liner launched in 1906, which took the record for the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1909 and held it for twenty years. Maurissa, a modern American feminine, joins that old root to the -issa ending that Marissa and Melissa made familiar.
Meaning
A feminine built on Maurice, from Latin Maurus, 'a Moor'
Maurice comes from Latin Mauritius, 'Moorish', from Maurus, a person from Mauretania in northwest Africa.
How the name formed
- Maurus
- Mauritius
- Maurice
- Maurissa
Related forms: Maurice · Maurizia · Mauricia · Mauritia
Pronouncing Maurissa
mor-ISS-uh
Three syllables with the stress on the second, like Marissa.
Nicknames for Maurissa
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1968
- Most girls named
- 199350 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2489reached in 1993
- Change vs 2014
- −14.3%6 in 2017, from 7
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Maurissa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Maurice in French — related form
- Maurizia in Italian — related form
- Mauricia in Spanish — related form
- Mauritia in Latin — related form
Maurissas among us
people named Maurissa are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Maurissa sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Sounds close to Marissa, a name most people know.
- Rooted in Maurice, a name with a long European history.
- Comes with Rissa as a ready short form.
- People will hear Marissa and write it that way.
- It is rare, so it will need spelling out on every form.
- The root means 'a Moor', a word with a complicated history some families will want to know about.
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Maurissa
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Maurissas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Maurissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maurissa in 2025?
- Maurissa is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Maurissa with classmates?
- Maurissa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maurissa? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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