Moustafa

Meaning of Moustafa

Moustafa is an Arabic male given name, a romanization variant of mustafā (مُصْطَفَى), literally “the chosen one,” which holds significant resonance in Islamic tradition as an honorific epithet of the Prophet Muhammad. Pronounced moos-TAH-fah (/muˈstafa/) in standard Arabic transcription, the name’s morphology exemplifies the passive participle form of the triliteral root ṣ-f-w, connoting both selection and purity. Transliterated variously as Mustafa, Mustapha or Moustafa—particularly under francophone influence—the form Moustafa has maintained a consistent if modest presence in the United States, where Social Security Administration data record seven newborns given this spelling in 2024 and a rank that has persistently occupied the high nine-hundreds since the mid-1980s. From an onomastic and sociolinguistic perspective, the name thus serves as a focal point of religious association, diasporic identity and linguistic adaptation, offering parents an appellation at once steeped in historical gravitas and illustrative of contemporary multicultural dynamics.