African-American heritage of presidents of the United States
Calvin Coolidge's mother Victoria Moor was claimed to be of a mixed-race family in Vermont. Vaughn noted that her surname was derived from "Moor", a European term for people of North Africa. He did not note that another meaning of her surname is the landscape feature of moor or bog. People's surnames were often based on such landscape features when surnames became generally adopted in 14th century England. Moor/Moore is a common name in England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Moors
"Moreno" can mean "dark-skinned" in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and the Philippines. Also in Spanish, "morapio" is a humorous name for "wine", especially that which has not been "baptized" or mixed with water, i.e., pure unadulterated wine. Among Spanish speakers, "moro" came to have a broader meaning, applied to both Filipino Moros from Mindanao, and the moriscos of Granada. "Moro" refers to all things dark, as in "Moor", "moreno", etc. It was also used as a nickname; for instance, the Milanese Duke Ludovico Sforza was called "Il Moro" because of his dark complexion.
In Portugal, "mouro" (feminine," moura") may refer to supernatural beings known as enchanted "moura", where "moor" implies 'alien' and 'non-Christian'. These beings were siren-like fairies with golden or reddish hair and a fair face. They were believed to have magical properties. From this root, the name moor is applied to unbaptized children, meaning not Christian. In Basque, "mairu" means moor and also refers to a mythical people.