NamesScriptureMyths & disputes

Moses

The lawgiver's name is most likely Egyptian, the -mose 'born of' in pharaohs' names like Thutmose and Ramose, which Hebrew then reinterpreted. As Mūsā, the most-named prophet of the Qur'an, it reached Persian, Urdu, Malay, Swahili and Mali, where Mansa Musa bore it. As Moses, Movses, Moisés and Moïse it went to Ethiopia, Armenia, Russia, Spain, France and the Philippines, and Yiddish made it Moyshe.

Weakest linkPossible

The story you may have heard

That 'Moses' means 'drawn out (of the water)' in Hebrew: this explanation comes from Exodus 2:10 itself, but most scholars regard it as a folk etymology for a name of probable Egyptian origin.

The road to English

From Biblical Hebrew to Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Urdu

From Arabic to Malay, Indonesian

From Arabic to Swahili

From Koine Greek to Old Church Slavonic, Old East Slavic, Russian

From Koine Greek to Ge'ez, Amharic

From Late Latin to Spanish, Tagalog

From Arabic to Turkish

From Biblical Hebrew to Yiddish

From Arabic to Mandinka

From Arabic to Hausa

From Biblical Hebrew to Modern Hebrew

From Koine Greek to Armenian

From Koine Greek to Coptic

From Late Latin to French

From Late Latin to Italian

From Late Latin to German

From Late Latin to Hungarian

From English to American English

1550 BCEAncient Egyptian

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.