What name was Moses called as a child and where did the name Moses come from?

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  His father named him Chaver, and his grandfather called him Avigdor, but he is known to history as Moses, a name given to him by Pharaoh's daughter.

The name "Moses" comes from a root meaning "take out," because Moses was taken out of the river (Ex. 2:10). Some modern scholars point out that the root M-S-S in Egyptian means "son of" as in the name Ramases (son of Ra), but it is worth noting that Moses's name in Hebrew is M-Sh-H, not M-S-S. According to one Jewish source, Pharaoh's daughter actually named him Minios, which means "drawn out" in Egyptian, and the name Moshe (Moses) was a Hebrew translation of that name, just as a Russian immigrant named Ivan might change his name to the English equivalent, John.

Root Word
A set of (usually) three consonants that conveys the central meaning of a Hebrew word. Prefixes, suffixes and vowels added to the root clarify the precise meaning.
 
Sources of information: Holy Bible, Hebrew Archives.

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Revised: November 26, 2008 .