Mora
A surname with multiple possible roots, most often linked to Spanish/Italian place-names or to the word for a mulberry or blackberry.
The #583 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 5,373 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Mora is most often explained as a locational surname, from a place called Mora or from a residence near a mora in the sense of a mulberry tree or blackberry bush. In Romance languages, the word ultimately goes back to Latin, where similar forms could refer to a mulberry and, in related uses, to delay or lingering. Because the same spelling can arise in different countries from different place-names and common nouns, the surname can have more than one independent origin.
History
The excerpts mainly support a place-based explanation, with medieval forms such as De Mora and Ad Moram recorded in older English surname discussions. The name is also common in Spanish- and Italian-speaking regions, where it may have developed independently from local villages or landscape features. In modern use it is found across the Hispanic world and in the United States, where many bearers likely descend from Spanish or Latin American families.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The Spanish common noun mora can mean a blackberry, mulberry, or a delay, so the same surname spelling can point to different roots depending on family history.
From the historical record
“mandy) = the Dead or Stagnant Water [Fr. mortemer—'LsX. mortu-us, dead ; L.Lat. mora, a pool, from the pi. (maria) of Lat. mare, sea : cp. Fr. mare, a pool, pond ; and eau morte, still water] Hugh de Mortuomari. — Hund. Rolls.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)