Mustafa
Masculine · Arabic roots · “the chosen”
Mustafa is one of the traditional epithets of the Prophet Muhammad, and it has been given to sons across the Arabic-speaking world, Turkey, Iran, South Asia, the Balkans and West Africa for well over a thousand years. Four Ottoman sultans carried it. Three open syllables and that long middle vowel make it easy to say slowly and hard to clip in a hurry.
How old is the name Mustafa?
Mustafa first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Mustafa alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 7,200 people named Mustafa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mustafa most popular?
Mustafa peaked in 2025, reaching #760 nationally. Today it ranks #760, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From al-Muṣṭafā (Arabic epithet) to Mustafa
The story of Mustafa
The name is Arabic, and its earliest life is religious: al-Muṣṭafā, 'the Chosen One', is one of the honorific titles given to the Prophet Muhammad. From there it spread with Islam far beyond Arabic, becoming an everyday given name in Ottoman Turkey — four sultans bore it — and then in Persian, Urdu, Bosnian, Malay and the French-speaking countries of West Africa, where it is usually written Moustapha. In the United States it arrived with families from all of those places, which is why it clusters in the big immigration states, and why one Mustafa's family history can be nothing like another's.
Meaning
the chosen, the elect
From Arabic muṣṭafā, the passive participle of iṣṭafā, 'to choose' — built on the root ṣ-f-w, which also gives words for purity and clarity.
How the name formed
- al-MuṣṭafāArabic epithet
- Muṣṭafā
- MustafaOttoman Turkish
- Mostafa / Moustapha
Related forms: مصطفى (Muṣṭafā) · Mustafa · Mostafa · Moustapha · Mustapha · مصطفیٰ (Mustafa)
Pronouncing Mustafa
MOOS-tah-fah
Arabic and most Muslim communities stress the first syllable; in Turkish the stress often falls on the last, moos-tah-FAH. English speakers frequently land on moo-STAH-fah, and all three are understood.
Nicknames for Mustafa
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
- 1963
- Most boys named
- 2025339 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #760reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +11.5%339 in 2025, from 304
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.
Mustafa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- مصطفى (Muṣṭafā) in Arabic — same name
- Mustafa in Turkish — same name
- Mostafa in Persian — transliteration
- Moustapha in French / West African — spelling variant
- Mustapha in Malay / Indonesian — spelling variant
- مصطفیٰ (Mustafa) in Urdu — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Texas.
Mustafas among us
people named Mustafa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 5,039 born in 2025 was named Mustafa
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 Laron test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mustafa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Laron climbed just as high around 1976, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Laron's path sketches the road Mustafa is walking now.
Mustafa is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Mustafa is headed
Mustafa should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Mustafa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mustafa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled identically in Turkish, Bosnian and standard Arabic transliteration, so it travels across a great many countries without changing shape.
- Every syllable is written as it sounds in English — no silent letters, no ambiguous vowels.
- A documented record stretching back more than a thousand years, in continuous use the whole time.
- Established short forms already exist in several languages: Mus, Musti, Mujo.
- Rival transliterations are common — Mostafa, Moustapha, Mustapha, Moustafa — so a Mustafa will spend some of his life spelling it out, even for people who know the name well.
- The name is an epithet of the Prophet Muhammad. In Muslim families that is the point; outside them, it is worth knowing that the name carries that weight wherever it is recognized.
- American English tends to shift the stress to the middle syllable, and the schoolyard nickname 'Moose' turns up more often than families expect.
- Still uncommon enough in the US that a Mustafa is unlikely to share it with a classmate — which some children enjoy and others find tiring in the introductions.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Mustafa to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Mustafa? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Mustafa
Masculine · Arabic roots · #760 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mustafas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,200 people named Mustafa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Mustafa in 2025?
- Mustafa ranks #760 among US boy names in 2025, with 339 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mustafa?
- About 1 in every 5,039 US boys born in 2025 was named Mustafa — 339 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mustafa with classmates?
- Mustafa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mustafa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dario#760 · Ayan#762 · Trace#757 · Santos#763 · Zyair#757 · Magnus#763 · Campbell#763 · Finnley#757
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mustafa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Mustafa and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle