[5] A purely legendary approach to the name refers to Raum the Old, one of the sons of Nór, the eponymous Saga King of Norway.

[citation needed][disputed – discuss] Since the majority of the residents of the county lived in the Sunnmøre region, there was some controversy over the name.

The name Møre was chosen to represent the region where the majority of the county residents lived.

That name is dative of Old Norse: Mǿrr (á Mǿri) and it is probably derived from the word marr referring to something wet like bog (common along the outer coast) or the sea itself.

Møre was originally the name of the coastal area from Stad and north including most of Fosen.

The change in name from Romsdalen to Møre was controversial and it did not sit well with the residents of the Romsdal region.

Shipping and shipbuilding were historically very important to the region, so boats were chosen as the symbol of the arms.

Historically speaking, connections have been stronger between Nordmøre and Sør-Trøndelag to the north, Romsdal and Oppland to the east, and Sunnmøre and Sogn og Fjordane to the south, than internally.

Due to geographical features, the county has many populated islands and is intersected by several deep fjords.

Due to its difficult terrain, Møre og Romsdal has been very dependent on boat traffic, and its main car ferry company, MRF, has existed since 1921.

This change in law led to an increase in the number of towns (Fosnavåg, Åndalsnes, and Ulsteinvik were all added after this time).

In 2019, archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, using large-scale high-resolution radar technology, determined that a 17-meter-long Viking ship was buried on the island of Edøya near Edøy Church.

They estimate the ship's age as over 1,000 years: from the Merovingian or Viking period; the group planned to conduct additional searches in the area.