How popular is the baby name Moses in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Moses.

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Popularity of the baby name Moses


Posts that mention the name Moses

Baby born after floods, named Noah

The city of Tiberias, named after the Roman Emperor Tiberius, is located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. On May 14, 1934, heavy rainfall caused severe flooding in the city. The flooding destroyed a great deal of property (including ancient ruins) and killed dozens of people.

Several days later, a baby boy was born…

May 16 – A woman who escaped the recent fatal floods in Tiberias gave birth to a son today. The parents named the baby Noah.

He’s one of several flood-surviving Noahs that I know of. Another is the Noah whose embryo was rescued from Hurricane Katrina floodwaters several years ago.

(Babies with related name-stories include Moses and L’Eau Haute.)

Source: “Baby Is Named “Noah.”” Ottawa Citizen 17 May 1934: 23.

The baby name Sephora in New York

Sephora sign

The cosmetics store Sephora — founded as “Shop 8” in France in 1970 — changed its name to Sephora in 1993 “by blending the Biblical name of Zipporah (Moses’ exceptionally beautiful wife) with the ancient Greek term for “pretty,” sephos.”

Never mind that the ancient Greek word sephos doesn’t seem to exist, and forget that the Bible makes no mention of Zipporah’s physical appearance.

But do note that Sephora opened its first U.S. location in New York’s SoHo neighborhood in 1998, then opened close to 40 more stores “from Seattle to Atlanta” before opening a flagship store in Manhattan in October of 1999.

Because the baby name Sephora — which has been in the U.S. data since the mid-1970s — made its first appearance in a state-specific dataset in 1999. And the state it popped up in? New York:

  • 2001: 20 baby girls named Sephora
  • 2000: 11 baby girls named Sephora
  • 1999: 11 baby girls named Sephora
    • 5 (45%) born in New York
  • 1998: 7 baby girls named Sephora
  • 1997: 14 baby girls named Sephora

Close to half of the babies named Sephora in 1999 were born in New York, where Sephora seems to have had a particularly strong presence.

Coincidence? Let me know what you think below…

Sources:

Baby name story: Moses

Hurricane Stan hit Central America in October of 2005. In Guatemala, hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed and thousands lives were lost in the mudslides triggered by the storm.

A Guatemalan woman named Natalia Rianda had gone into labor during the flooding. Soon after being rescued, she gave birth to a son. She named him Moses after the biblical prophet who’d also had to contend with a large amount of water once.

Source: Guatemala Presses on with Grim Hurricane Recovery

Baby name needed: What do you think of Phineas?

A reader named Virginia is expecting a baby in September. For a boy, she’d selected the name Phineas. She liked “that it was unusual without being bizarre,” and that it started with ph. But now she’s not so sure about the name:

All was fine and dandy until I read an article about violence in the Bible. It vaguely mentioned Phineas as a name from the Bible used as a talisman by white supremacists. What!?!

That was a shock to me too. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Phineas Priesthood is “a violent credo of vengeance that has gained some popularity among white supremacists and other extremists in recent years.” I’d never heard of the Phineas Priesthood before–not even when Julia Roberts named her son Phinnaeus a few years ago.

Virginia doesn’t want to give up her favorite name, but she also “can’t live with such an association,” so she was hoping for some name suggestions. Other names she’s considering include Joel and Samuel (for boys) and Sigrid, Phoebe, Elisabeth, and Anne (for girls). All are family names.

First, a few thoughts:

  • I doubt many people are aware that white supremacists use Phineas as a code word. It’s an odious association, but maybe it’s also obscure enough that it’s not worth worrying about…?
  • I really like Sigrid and Phoebe–they’re both significant and unusual. Especially Sigrid. (Phoebe is being used more and more every year, so it might not be unusual for long.)

And now, name suggestions. Here are some unusual-but-not-bizarre boy names that I think Virginia might like:

Amos
Barnabas
Baxter
Ephraim
Ezra		Felix
Horatio
Humphrey
Lazarus
Matthias		Maximilian
Moses
Peregrine
Ralph
Raphael		Rufus
Silas
Simeon
Ulysses
Zephaniah

And some girl names:

Clotilde
Cybele
Daphne
Dagny
Delphine		Drusilla
Esther
Fabiola
Georgia
Josephine		Lucretia
Ophelia
Penelope
Phyllis
Ruth		Salome
Seraphina
Talulla
Tryphena
Verena

What other names would you suggest to Virginia? (And, what’s your take on the Phineas dilemma?)

Update: The baby has arrived! Click here to learn the baby’s name.