Musa

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Mousa in EG Egypt, US United States, FR France and 8 more, Муса in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan, KG Kyrgyzstan and 3 more and Mussa in TZ Tanzania.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Musa is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Turkish given name1.7M records spelled Musa62 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Türkiye, Nigeria, Russia, United States

  Languages: Turkish, English, Uzbek

  Also written Муса, Muşa, Müsa, M'Usa, Мўса

• Hindi given name126K records spelled Musa71 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa

  Languages: Hindi, Marathi, Urdu

  Also written Musaa, Moosa, Musha, মুসা, Mussa

• Spanish given name64K records spelled Musa24 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, Spain, Nigeria, Brazil

  Languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese

  Also written M'Usa, Mus'A, Musà, Mùsa, Müsã

• Amharic given name60K records spelled Musa18 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Türkiye, United States

  Also written ሙሳ, Muse, ሙሴ, Moses, Mussie

• a separate given name28K records spelled Musa15 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, Ethiopia, Nigeria

  Also written Mūsā, Mūsá, Mūsà, Mușa, Mūsa

67 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Musa is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• habitational name from a place called Musa, particularly the one in Melito di Porto Salvo in Reggio Calabria, and the one in Nissoria in Enna province, Sicily.

  as a name·Dictionary of American Family Names

• from the Arabic personal name Musa (the Biblical Moses). The Qur’an says (19:51): ‘He was specially chosen, and he was a Messenger and a Prophet.’

  as a name·Dictionary of American Family Names

• In Turkish, Moses

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In English, A male given name from Arabic, equivalent to English Moses.

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Swahili, Moses (biblical character)

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

XK ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) — 132 years between 1875–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Musa al-Kazimb. 745SAseventh of the Twelve Imams (745–799 CE)
• Al-Hadib. 761IQnot in their usual nameArab Abbasid Caliph (r. 785-786)
• Al-Ashraf Musab. 1182EGAyyubid emir of Damascus 1229–1237
• Al-Ashrafb. 1245EGnot in their usual nameSultan of Egypt 1250-1255
• Mansa Musab. 128014th-century emperor (mansa) of the Mali Empire
• Musa Çelebib. 1388TROttoman prince
• Kazım Karabekirb. 1882TRnot in their usual nameTurkish general and statesperson (1882–1948)
• Theophilus Londonb. 1987USnot in their usual nameAmerican rapper and singer
• Musa Mogushkovb. 1988RURussian judoka
• Musa Barrowb. 1998GMGambian association football player

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 760 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Musa?

We estimate roughly 30 thousand people bear Musa (counting its spellings and scripts) across 7 countries in our records.

In which country does Musa have the most bearers?

Musa is most frequently recorded in Nigeria, where it is most often spelled musa.

How common is Musa compared with other names?

In Nigeria, Musa is the 19th most common given name of 146,224 given names recorded there.

Is Musa a male or female name?

Musa is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Musa mean?

Recorded meaning: Wolof (Senegal), also Muslim/Swahili: 'mercy' or 'saved from the water'