Moya
A feminine name of Russian origin meaning "my" or "mine".
Name Census estimates that about 529 living Americans carry the first name Moya. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Moya today is around 40 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Moya births was 2003 (19 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Moya. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Moya with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
529
~ 1 in 647,929 Americans
Peak year
2003
19 babies that year
Average age
40
years old
2021 SSA rank
#16,904
Tracked since 1923
Census
Moya in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 846 people with the first name Moya, which placed it at #14,041 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#14,041
National first-name rank
People counted
846
846 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
43.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Moya
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Moya is White at 43.4%. The next largest groups are Black (40.0%) and Hispanic (5.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Moya described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Moya at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White43.4% · 367
- Black or African American40.0% · 338
- Hispanic or Latino5.7% · 48
- Two or more races5.4% · 46
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.6% · 39
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 8
Popularity
Moya: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Moya from the 1920s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 125 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Moya by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Moya during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Moyas live
Origin
Meaning and history of Moya
The name Moya is believed to have its origins in the Slavic languages, specifically Russian and Ukrainian. It is derived from the Old Church Slavonic word "moya," which translates to "mine" or "my own." The name gained popularity in the 10th and 11th centuries during the Christianization of the Kievan Rus', the medieval East Slavic state.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Moya can be found in the Laurentian Codex, a medieval Russian chronicle compiled in the 14th century. The chronicle mentions a woman named Moya who lived in the 11th century and was the wife of a prominent nobleman.
In the 16th century, Moya was the name of a Russian noblewoman and lady-in-waiting to Tsar Ivan the Terrible. She is mentioned in several historical accounts of the Tsar's court and is said to have had a significant influence on the ruler.
During the 19th century, the name Moya gained popularity among the Russian aristocracy. One notable figure was Moya Mikhailovna Lermontova (1795-1875), a Russian noblewoman and the mother of the renowned poet Mikhail Lermontov.
Another historical figure with the name Moya was Moya Martemyanovna Plisetskaya (1925-2015), a renowned Russian prima ballerina and choreographer. She was considered one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century and was a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet.
In the realm of literature, Moya is the name of a character in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The character, Moya Pavlovna Smerdiashchaia, is a young woman who is involved in a scandalous affair with one of the novel's main characters.
While the name Moya has Slavic origins, it has also been adopted and used in other cultures and languages, particularly in Eastern Europe and parts of Central Asia. However, the majority of historical references and notable figures bearing the name Moya can be traced back to its Slavic roots.
People
Moya + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Moya as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Moya: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Moya?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 529 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Moya going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 647,929 US residents.
Is Moya a common name?
We classify Moya as "Very Rare". It ranks above 85.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 627 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Moya most popular?
The single biggest year for Moya was 2003, when 19 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Moya is about 40 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Moya in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 846 people with the name Moya, or 0.28 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #14,041 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Moya in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Moya?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Moya leans strongly female. 808 people counted with this name were female (95.8%), compared with 35 male bearers (4.2%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Moya?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Moya is White at 43.4%. The next largest groups are Black (40.0%) and Hispanic (5.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Moya most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Moya in the 2020 Census, accounting for 43.4% (367 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Moya in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Moya a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Moya in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Moya still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Moya in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Moya can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Moya?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.