Morris

Morris is a variant spelling of Maurice. It makes for a fun and quick bit of name tracking through history. First, we have Maurice. Maurice, like so many names, was brought to the English by the Normans around the time of the Norman Conquest. Once in England, we have some people who spell it the way it sounds to them, and we get Morris from Maurice. During the Middle Ages, Morris was used fairly frequently as a given name, but after the 17th century was used rarely if at all. It was used often enough in the Middle Ages to spawn surnames though--Morris, Morrison, etc. Later, Morris came back into limited use because of its status as a surname--for instance, a common practice has been to use the mother's maiden name as the middle name for the son. The name did not become fashionable or popular again though, so today, we tend to think of Maurice as a French name, and Morris as a cat. Incidentally, 9Lives is the only canned cat food our cat will eat, and the only variety he will eat is the veal, which isn't always easy to find. Our cat looks a lot like Morris, but his name is Cat.