Moore (surname)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the surname. For people who share this surname, see List of people with surname Moore.

O'More
Origin
Word/nameBritish Isles
Meaning"moor", "stately and noble"
Region of originIreland, Scotland, Wales, England, Spain, France
Frequency Comparisons:[1]
Ó Mórda.

Moore (pronounced /mʊər/ or /mɔːr/) is a common English-language surname. It was the 19th most common surname in Ireland in 1901 with 15,417 members.[2] It is the 34th most common surname in Australia, 32nd most common in England,[1] and was the 16th most common surname in the United States in 2000.[3]

It can have several meanings and derivations, as it appeared as a surname long before written language had developed in most of the population, resulting in a variety of spellings.

Variations of the name can appear as Moore, More or Moor; as well as the

Manx Gaelic origination Moar; the Irish originations O'More and Ó Mórdha; and the later Irish variants O'Moore and de Mora. The name also arises as an anglicisation of the Welsh epithet Mawr meaning great or large.[4]

The similarly pronounced surname Mohr is of Germanic lineage and is not related to the Gaelic/English variations.

Meanings and origins

  • From
    heath
    .
  • The Old Irish Moores are O'Mordha, from the Irish Gaelic word mordha, meaning "stately and noble". The Anglo-Norman Moores (established in Ireland's province of Munster soon after the Anglo/Norman invasion) are called de Mora in Irish, a phonetic rendering of the English name which is derived from the word "moor", or "heathy mountain".
  • According to historian C. Thomas Cairney, the O'Mores in Ireland were one of the chiefly families of the Loígis tribe who in turn came from the Cruthin tribe who were the first Celts to settle in Ireland from between 800 and 500 BC.[5]
  • Alternatively of Gaelic/Manx origin Moar, the name for a collector of manorial rents on the Isle of Man.
  • The spelling Moore was sometimes used to indicate a son of someone called More – this being one use where spelling is significant.
  • Possibly derived from
    North African
    descent.
  • Possibly originated from early references to persons who worked with
    moorage.[1]
  • The De La Mare surname from French Normandy was progressively anglicized in England as "de la Mare" (
    Dukes of Normandy, may have been a member of this family, if his father - as some historians have it - was Rognvald Eysteinsson
    , Earl of Møre, Norway.

Frequency

In the United States, "Moore" ranked 9th among all surnames in the 1990 census, accounting for 0.3% of the population.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Moore Surname Meaning". forebears.co.uk. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  2. ^ "MOORE Surname Maps of Ireland".
  3. ^ "Frequently Occurring Surnames from the Census 2000". United States Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce. 15 September 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  4. ^ "Moore Name Meaning & More Family History".
  5. ISBN 0899503624
    .
  6. ^ United States Census Bureau (9 May 1995). s:1990 Census Name Files dist.all.last (1-100). Retrieved on 2008-07-04.
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