Moses (given name)

Moses (Greek: Μωϋσῆς),^{[NB 1]} Moishe (Yiddish: משה),^{[NB 2]} Moshe (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה),^{[NB 3]} Musa (Arabic:موسی),^{[NB 4]} or Movses (Armenian: Մովսես) ^{[NB 5]} is a male given name, after the biblical figure Moses.

An Egyptian root msy ('child of') has been considered as a possible etymology, arguably an abbreviation of a theophoric name, as for example in Egyptian names like Thutmose ('child of Thoth') and Ramesses ('child of Ra'),^[1] with the god's name omitted. However, biblical scholar Kenneth Kitchen argued that this – or any Egyptian origin for the name – was unlikely, as the sounds in the Hebrew m-š-h do not correspond to the pronunciation of Egyptian msy in the relevant time period.^[2] Linguist Abraham Yahuda, based on the spelling given in the Tanakh, argues that it combines "water" or "seed" and "pond, expanse of water," thus yielding the sense of "child of the Nile" (mw-š).^[3]

The Hebrew etymology in the Biblical story may reflect an attempt to cancel out traces of Moses' Egyptian origins.^[4] The Egyptian character of his name was recognized as such by ancient Jewish writers like Philo and Josephus.^[4] Philo linked Moses's name (Ancient Greek: Μωϋσῆς, romanized: Mōysēs, lit. 'Mōusḗs') to the Egyptian (Coptic) word for 'water' (möu, μῶυ), in reference to his finding in the Nile and the biblical folk etymology.^{[NB 6]} Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, claims that the second element, -esês, meant 'those who are saved'. The problem of how an Egyptian princess, known to Josephus as Thermutis (identified as Tharmuth)^[5] and to 1 Chronicles 4:18 as Bithiah,^[6] could have known Hebrew puzzled medieval Jewish commentators like Abraham ibn Ezra and Hezekiah ben Manoah. Hezekiah suggested she either converted or took a tip from Jochebed.^[7]^[8]

According to the Torah, the name "Moses" comes from the Hebrew verb, meaning "to pull out/draw out" [of water], and the infant Moses was given this name by Pharaoh's daughter after she rescued him from the Nile (Exodus 2:10)^[9] Since the rise of Egyptology and decipherment of hieroglyphs, it was postulated that the name of Moses, with a similar pronunciation as the Hebrew Moshe, is the Egyptian word for Son, with Pharaoh names such as Thutmose and Ramesses roughly translating to "son of Thoth" and "son of Ra," respectively.^[10]

There are various ways of pronouncing the Hebrew name of Moses, for example in Ashkenazi western European it would be pronounced Mausheh, in Eastern Europe Moysheh, in northern Islamic countries Moussa, and in Yemen Mesha. The nicknames are accordingly (usually with emphasis on the first syllable) Moishe, Moysh, Maish, Moeez, Mo, Moyshee, Musie (pronounced Mooziyeh).

Jews named with the Hebrew name of Moses, commonly held a similar name in the language of the countries where they were born or lived. In Europe they were named Maurici, Maurice, Morris, Mauricio. In Arabic speaking countries, along with Musa or Moussa - the Arabic name for Moses, they were also named Mustafa.^[11]

People with this name

Ancient times

Moses, the most important figure in the Torah
Moses of Alexandria, alchemist

Medieval

Moses (bishop of the Arabs) (c. 389), saint, first Arab bishop of the Arab people
Moses the Black (330–405), saint, ascetic monk and priest in Egypt, a Desert Father
Moses of Chorene (5th century; Armenian: Մովսես Խորենացի, Movsēs Xorenac'i), Armenian historian, "father of Armenian history"
Moses of Kalankatuyk (7th century; Armenian: Մովսէս Կաղանկատուացի, Movses Kaġankatvac'i), Armenian historian
Moses the Calm (8th century; Arabic: موسى الكاظم, Mūsá al-Kādhim), Twelver Shia imam
Moses the Hungarian (990s–1043; Russian: Моисей Угрин, Moisey Ugrin), Russian saint
Moses ibn Ezra (1070–1138), Jewish, Spanish philosopher
Moses Kimhi (died c. 1190), medieval rabbi from Hachmei Provence, Occitania (modern France)
Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), Spanish rabbi, physician, and philosopher
Moses de León (c. 1250–1305; Hebrew: משה בן שם-טוב, Moshe ben Shem-Tov), Spanish rabbi who is thought to have composed the Zohar
Moses Shirvani, Jewish writer who authored a Hebrew/Aramaic–Persian dictionary in 1459

Early modern to 18th century

Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (1522–1570; Hebrew: משה קורדובירו, Moshe Kordovero), a central figure in the historical development of Kabbalah, also known as Ramak (רמ״ק)
Moses Holden (1777–1864), English astronomer
Moses Isserles (1530–1572; Hebrew: משה בן ישראל איסרלישׂ, Polish: Mojżesz ben Israel Isserles), Polish Ashkenazic rabbi and talmudist
Moses Amyraut (1596–1664; also Moïse Amyraut), French theologian and metaphysician
Moses Cordovero (17th century), Italian physician
Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), German Jewish philosopher
Moses Robinson (1741–1813), judge, governor, and senator from Vermont
Moses Cleaveland (1754–1806), surveyor of the Connecticut Land Company and founder of Cleveland, Ohio
Moses Sofer (1762–1839; Yiddish: משה סופר), a leading Orthodox rabbi of European Jewry in the early 19th century
Moses Montefiore (1784–1885), sheriff of London

Modern

Moses Alexander (1853–1932), former governor of Idaho
Moses Barrett III (born 1973), African–American hip hop artist, better known by his stage name Petey Pablo
Moses Michael Levi Barrow (born Jamal Michael Barrow; 1978), better known by his stage name Shyne, Belizean rapper and politician
Moses Bloom (1833–1893), American politician, the first Jewish mayor of a major American city (Iowa City, Iowa)
Moses Brown (basketball) (born 1999), American basketball player
Moses Costa (1950–2020), Bangladeshi Roman Catholic prelate
Moses Dyer (born 1997), New Zealand association footballer
Moses J. Epstein (c. 1911–1960), New York assemblyman
Moses Jacob Ezekiel (1844–1917), American sculptor
Moses Harrison (1932–2013), American jurist
Moses Hess (1812–1875), French-Jewish Zionist
Moses Hogan (1957–2003), American composer and arranger of spirituals
Moe Howard (born Moses Horwitz; 1897–1975), one of the Three Stooges
Moses Hurvitz (1844–1910), Galician-born Jewish playwright
Moses Isegawa (born 1963), Ugandan author
Moses Kotane (1905–1978), South African anti-apartheid activist, Secretary-General of the South African Communist Party from 1939 to 1978
Moses Lairy (1859–1927), Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court
Moses Malone (1955–2015), American basketball player
Moses Martin, the son of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin
Moses McKissack III (1879–1952), African American architect
Moses Mbye (born 1993), Australian Rugby League player of Gambian descent
Moses ka Moyo (1977–2018), South African journalist and activist
Moses Regular (born 1971), American football player
Moses Rosen (1912–1994), Romanian rabbi
Moses Josef Rubin, (1892–1980), Hasidic Jewish cleric in Romania and, later, in New York City
Moses Russell, (1888–1946) Welsh footballer
Moses Sherman (1853–1932), American land developer in Arizona and California
Moses Sithole (born 1964), South African serial killer and rapist
Moses M. Weinstein (1912–2007), American politician

Fictional characters

Moses the raven in Animal Farm
Moses E. Herzog, title character in Saul Bellow's Herzog
Moses, the protagonist of The Yiddisher Boy (1909)

Notes

^ from Latin and Greek
^ from Yiddish
^ from Modern Hebrew
^ from Arabic
^ from Armenian

^

εἶτα δίδωσιν ὄνομα θεμένη Μωυσῆν ἐτύμως διὰ τὸ ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος αὐτὸν ἀνελέσθαι· τὸ γὰρ ὕδωρ μῶυ ὀνομάζουσιν Αἰγύπτιοι

"Since he had been taken up from the water, the princess gave him a name derived from this, and called him Moses, for Möu is the Egyptian word for water."

—Philo of Alexandria, De Vita Mosis, I:4:17.

—Colson, F. H., trans. 1935. On Abraham. On Joseph. On Moses, (Loeb Classical Library 289). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 284–85.

References

^ Hays, Christopher B. 2014. Hidden Riches: A Sourcebook for the Comparative Study of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East. Presbyterian Publishing. p. 116.
^ Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003), pp. 296–97: "His name is widely held to be Egyptian, and its form is too often misinterpreted by biblical scholars. It is frequently equated with the Egyptian word 'ms' (Mose) meaning 'child', and stated to be an abbreviation of a name compounded with that of a deity whose name has been omitted. And indeed we have many Egyptians called Amen-mose, Ptah-mose, Ra-mose, Hor-mose, and so on. But this explanation is wrong. We also have very many Egyptians who were actually called just 'Mose', without omission of any particular deity. Most famous because of his family's long lawsuit in the middle-class scribe Mose (of the temple of Ptah at Memphis), under Ramesses II; but he had many homonyms. So, the omission-of-deity explanation is to be dismissed as wrong ... There is worse. The name of Moses is most likely not Egyptian in the first place! The sibilants do not match as they should, and this cannot be explained away. Overwhelmingly, Egyptian 's' appears as 's' (samekh) in Hebrew and West Semitic, while Hebrew and West Semitic 's' (samekh) appears as 'tj' in Egyptian. Conversely, Egyptian 'sh' = Hebrew 'sh', and vice versa. It is better to admit that the child was named (Exod 2:10b) by his own mother, in a form originally vocalized 'Mashu', 'one drawn out' (which became 'Moshe', 'he who draws out', i.e., his people from slavery, when he led them forth). In fourteenth/thirteenth-century Egypt, 'Mose' was actually pronounced 'Masu', and so it is perfectly possible that a young Hebrew Mashu was nicknamed Masu by his Egyptian companions; but this is a verbal pun, not a borrowing either way."
^ Ulmer, Rivka. 2009. Egyptian Cultural Icons in Midrash. de Gruyter. p. 269.
^ ^a ^b Greifenhagen, Franz V. 2003. Egypt on the Pentateuch's Ideological Map: Constructing Biblical Israel's Identity. Bloomsbury. pp. 60ff [62] n.65. [63].
^ Maciá, Lorena Miralles. 2014. "Judaizing a Gentile Biblical Character through Fictive Biographical Reports: The Case of Bityah, Pharaoh's Daughter, Moses' Mother, according to Rabbinic Interpretations". pp. 145–175 in C. Cordoni and G. Langer (eds.), Narratology, Hermeneutics, and Midrash: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Narratives from Late Antiquity through to Modern Times. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
^ Scolnic, Benjamin Edidin. 2005. If the Egyptians Drowned in the Red Sea where are Pharaoh's Chariots?: Exploring the Historical Dimension of the Bible. University Press of America. p. 82.
^ Salkin, Jeffrey K. (2008). Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible: Ancient Role Models for Sacred Relationships. Jewish Lights. pp. 47ff [54].
^ Harris, Maurice D. 2012. Moses: A Stranger Among Us. Wipf and Stock. pp. 22–24.
^ Exodus 2:10
^ Hanks & Hodges, Oxford Dictionary of Names, page 377
^ Maurici Gotlieb, Ezra Mendelson chapter 1, Zalman Shazar Center Publishing (Hebrew National Library card)