Motiș village was previously known in Romanian as Motișdorf and Motișul. Alternate German names include Märtesdorf and Mertesdorf. In Latin records, it is called Villa Morteni.
It was first mentioned in 1319 as the property of Saxon counts Niklaus and Johann von Talmisch. In 1415, Mortesdorf was first called by its sole German name "Gemeinde Martin". Serfdom was abolished in 1848. Saxons made up the majority of the village population for centuries until the 1980s. The community emigrated en masse, chiefly to Germany; at that point, Romanians and Roma became dominant. By 2006, just one Transylvanian Saxon resided in the village.[2]
