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Updated June 9, 2019

Boy name origins & meanings

  • English : English moor; meadow; Outdoors loving

Family name origins & meanings

  • Scottish : variant spelling of Muir.
  • Welsh : from mawr ‘big’ (see Moore).
  • French : nickname for a dark-skinned person, from Old French more ‘Moor’ (Latin maurus) (see Moore 2).
  • French (also Moré) : nickname from Old French of more ‘Moor’ or from moré, moret ‘dark brown’ (diminutive forms). The term was also used to refer to dark-colored cloth.
  • French (Moré) : from a short pet form of a Germanic personal name beginning with Maur-, Mor- ‘Moor’, for example, Morbold (+ bold ‘bold’, ‘brave’) or Morbert (+ berht ‘bright’, ‘famous’).
  • Indian (Maharashtra); pronounced as two syllables : Hindu (Maratha) name, probably from Marathi mor ‘peacock’ (Sanskrit mayūra). It is based on the name of a Maratha clan.
  • Richard More (1614–c.1695), the illegitimate son of Jacob Blakeley and Katherine More, wife of Samuel More, was shipped to America aboard the Mayflower to be raised with the Pilgrims and avoid the social stigma of being bastardized. He became a mariner and sea captain with polygamous families on both sides of the ocean. Nicholas More, born in England, emigrated to PA in 1682 and became chief justice of PA and the lower counties.

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