Morocco's full Arabic name al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah (المملكة المغربية) may best be translated as 'Kingdom of the West', although 'the West' in Arabic is الغرب al-Gharb. The name can also be translated as 'kingdom of the evening;. Medieval Arab historians and geographers sometimes referred to Morocco as al-Maghrib al-Aqṣá (المغرب الأقصى (meaning 'the Farthest West') to distinguish it from neighbouring regions then called al-Maghrib al-Awsaṭ (المغرب الأوسط, meaning 'the Middle West') and al-Maghrib al-Adná (المغرب الأدنى, meaning 'the Nearest West').[18]

The word Morocco is derived from the name of the city of Marrakesh, which was its capital under the Almoravid dynasty and the Almohad Caliphate.[19] The origin of the name Marrakesh is disputed,[20] but it most likely comes from the Berber words amur (n) akush (ⴰⵎⵓⵔ ⵏ ⴰⴽⵓⵛ), meaning 'Land of God'.[21] The modern Berber name for Marrakesh is Mṛṛakc (in the Berber Latin script). In Turkish, Morocco is known as Fas, a name derived from its ancient capital of Fes. However, in other parts of the Islamic world, for example in Egyptian and Middle Eastern Arabic literature before the mid-20th century, the name commonly used to refer to Morocco was Marrakesh (مراكش).[22]

That name is still used for the nation today in some languages, including Persian, Urdu, and Punjabi. The English name Morocco is an anglicisation of the Spanish name for the country, Marruecos. That Spanish name was also the basis for the old Tuscan word for the country, Morrocco, from which the modern Italian word for the country, Marocco, is derived.