Moises
Masculine
Moises is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 31,345 boys against 52 girls since 1880.
Moises is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Moses, a name carried out of Hebrew into Greek, then Latin, then nearly every language Christianity and Islam touched. In Spanish it is written Moisés, with the stress landing firmly on that final syllable — three beats, ending bright. Few names have a longer unbroken paper trail.
How old is the name Moises?
Moises first appears in US birth records in 1893 — 132 years ago. The typical Moises alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 29,500 people named Moises are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Moises most popular?
Moises peaked in 2001, reaching #308 nationally. Today it ranks #587, 279 places below that high. See the whole 2001 chart.
Moises appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Mosheh to Moises
The story of Moises
The name begins as Hebrew Mosheh, borne by the figure at the center of the Exodus story. The Jewish translators who produced the Greek Septuagint wrote it Mōusēs; Latin Bibles turned that into Moyses, and from the Latin came Spanish Moisés, Portuguese Moisés and French Moïse. Arabic reached the same name independently as Musa, which is why it is common from Morocco to Indonesia. Moises arrived in United States records in the late nineteenth century and has been there ever since, most often as the unaccented spelling of the Spanish form.
Meaningscholars disagree
either "drawn out (of the water)" or Egyptian "son, born of"
Exodus 2:10 explains the name from the Hebrew root meaning to draw out, since the infant was drawn from the Nile. Scholars of Egyptian have long pointed instead to the element mose, "son" or "born of," the same piece that ends Thutmose and Ramose. Both readings are seriously held, and the name is old enough to hold both.
How the name formed
- Mosheh
- Mōusēs
- Moyses
- Moisés
- Moises
Related forms: Moshe · Moses · Moisés · Musa · Moïse · Mosè
Pronouncing Moises
moy-SESS
Three syllables in careful Spanish (mo-ee-SESS), usually compressed to two, always with the stress at the end. English speakers who know Moses often reach for MOY-zeez instead, so a gentle correction is part of the deal. The accented spelling Moisés makes the stress explicit.
Nicknames for Moises
High
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
- 1893
- Most boys named
- 2001912 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #308reached in 2001
- Change vs 2023
- −8.6%502 in 2025, from 549
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.
Moises in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Moshe in Hebrew — same name
- Moses in English — same name
- Moisés in Spanish — spelling variant
- Musa in Arabic — same name
- Moïse in French — same name
- Mosè in Italian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Moisess among us
people named Moises are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 3,403 born in 2025 was named Moises
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Mac test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Moises's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mac climbed just as high around 1942, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mac's path sketches the road Moises is walking now.
Moises sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Moises is headed
Moises should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Moises beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Moises in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognized across Spanish, Portuguese, English, French and Arabic-speaking countries, through the same biblical figure in each.
- One of the oldest continuously used names on record, with a documented line from Hebrew through Greek and Latin.
- Has a ready-made short form, Moi, already in everyday use rather than invented on the spot.
- Familiar enough to need no explanation, uncommon enough that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate.
- The accent matters. Moisés tells a reader where the stress falls; Moises leaves it open, and English speakers will often guess MOY-zeez by analogy with Moses. Expect to choose one spelling and repeat the pronunciation more than once.
- It sits beside Moses, and some people will assume the two are interchangeable or write one for the other. They are the same name, which makes the mix-up understandable but no less frequent.
- The biblical association is unavoidable and, for many families, the whole point — worth knowing that it comes with the name whether or not you intend it.
- Its use in the United States is concentrated in Spanish-speaking communities, so outside them it may read as a deliberate marker of heritage.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Moises to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Moises
Masculine · #587 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Moisess are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 29,500 people named Moises are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Moises in 2025?
- Moises ranks #587 among US boy names in 2025, with 502 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Moises?
- About 1 in every 3,403 US boys born in 2025 was named Moises — 502 in all.
- Will my child share the name Moises with classmates?
- Moises will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Moises
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rayan#588 · Vicente#589 · Eliel#585 · Camilo#585 · Maximilian#590 · Tru#591 · Cassius#582 · Kyren#582
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Moises? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Moises and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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