Mauri (from which derives the English term "Moors") is the Latin designation for the population of Mauretania, the part of Africa west of Numidia, corresponding roughly to the territory of modern Morocco.

Mauri (Μαῦροι) is recorded by Strabo, who wrote in the early firstst century, as the native name, which was also adopted into Latin, while he cites the Greek name for the same people as Maurusii (Μαυρούσιοι).

The name Mauri as a tribal confederation or generic ethnic desigator thus seems to roughly correspond to the people known as Numidians in earlier ethnography; both terms presumably group early Berber-speaking populations (the earliest Libyco-Berber epigraphy dates to about the third century BCE).

In CE 44, the Roman Empire incorporated the region as the province of Mauretania, later divided into Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana.

The area around Carthage is already part of the province of Africa.

Roman rule is effective enough so that these provinces become integrated into the empire.By the early Christian era, the byname Mauritius identifies anyone originating in Africa (the Maghreb), roughly corresponding to Berber populations.

Two prominent "Mauritian" churchmen are Tertullian and St. Augustine.

The third-century Christian saint Mauritius, in whose honor the given name Maurice originates, is from Egypt.After the fall of Rome, the Germanic kingdom of the Vandals rules much of the area.

Neither Vandal nor Byzantine can extend effective rule; the interior remains under Mauri (Berber) control.

After the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, there seem to have been continued Mauri resistance for another fifty years.

The Chronicle of 754 still mentions Mauri but by the High Middle Ages the endonym seems to have disappeared, while Christian sources begin to apply the term Mauri, Moors to the Islamic populations of the Maghreb and Andalusia in general.The modern state of Mauritania received its name as a French colony in 1903; it was named after ancient Mauretania in spite of its being situated considerably to the south of the ancient province.