Avah
Feminine · “unsettled”
Avah is Ava with a silent h on the end — the same finish English has given Sarah, Leah, Hannah and Norah for centuries. The base name is old and well traveled, carried by a ninth-century Frankish abbess and revived in English-speaking countries in the twentieth century; this spelling has its own quiet run in American records going back a hundred years. Two syllables, both open, and no one will need it spelled twice to say it.
How old is the name Avah?
Avah first appears in US birth records in 1923 — 102 years ago. The typical Avah is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 7,000 people named Avah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Avah most popular?
Avah peaked in 2018, reaching #463 nationally. Today it ranks #1436, 973 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ava to Avah
The story of Avah
The name behind this spelling is documented in medieval Europe: Ava, borne by a ninth-century Frankish noblewoman later venerated as a saint, and by German-speaking women through the Middle Ages. English-speaking families took it up much later, and it spread widely in the twentieth century. The h-ending is an English habit rather than a foreign import — the same decorative final letter that sits on Sarah, Leah, Dinah and Norah, silent and purely visual. Avah has appeared in American birth records for about a century, always the smaller sibling of the plain spelling.
Meaningscholars disagree
unsettled — most often read as "bird" (Latin avis) or as a form of Eve, "life"
Three serious readings compete for Ava, and Avah inherits all of them. One traces it to the medieval Germanic name Ava, whose own root element is not agreed on. A second connects it to Latin avis, "bird". A third treats it as a smoothed form of Eve, from Hebrew Chavah, "life". Separately, Persian has its own Āvā, meaning "voice" or "melody" — a genuine name with a genuine meaning, but not the source of the English one.
How the name formed
- Ava
- Avah
Related forms: Ava · Eva · Ève · Chavah · Āvā
Pronouncing Avah
AY-vuh
The final h is silent and changes nothing. In much of continental Europe the same letters are said AH-vuh, so relatives abroad may reach for that.
Nicknames for Avah
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1923
- Most girls named
- 2018679 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #463reached in 2018
- Change vs 2024
- −24.2%150 in 2025, from 198
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Avah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ava in English — spelling variant
- Eva in Spanish, Italian, German — related form
- Ève in French — related form
- Chavah in Hebrew — related form
- Āvā in Persian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Georgia.
Avahs among us
people named Avah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,715 born in 2025 was named Avah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Avah
- #1436
- Avah on the 2025 chart
- #14
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Avah went to 150 girls in 2025, but Ava is the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 7,892, which makes it the 14th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,422 places above the chart.
- Ava7,732
- Avah150
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 204 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 10,715 for Avah itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Twila test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Avah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Twila climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Twila's path sketches the road Avah is walking now.
Avah sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Avah is headed
Avah is easing off slowly — about 30% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Avah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Avah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on sight for English speakers — the added h does not disturb the two clear syllables.
- The spelling pattern is already familiar from Sarah, Hannah, Leah and Norah, so it looks intentional rather than invented.
- Shares the long documented history of Ava, in use in Europe since the Middle Ages.
- Carries a distinct written form while sounding identical to a name almost everyone already knows.
- Sits comfortably alongside Eva, Eve and Chavah if the family uses more than one language.
- The h will be dropped for life. Teachers, doctors, coaches and forms will default to Ava, and correcting it becomes a small lifelong errand.
- The sound is common even where the spelling is not. She may well be the only Avah in a school and still share her name aloud with a classmate or two.
- The meaning is genuinely unsettled — pleasant if you like a name with several stories, less so if you wanted one clean answer to give her.
- Its wave in the United States is recent, so the name reads as belonging to children and young people rather than to any older generation.
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What they receive
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Avah
Feminine · #1436 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Avahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,000 people named Avah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Avah?
- Avah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Ava is the more common one — 7,732 births in 2025 against 150 for Avah.
- How popular is the name Avah in 2025?
- Avah ranks #1436 among US girl names in 2025, with 150 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Avah?
- About 1 in every 10,715 US girls born in 2025 was named Avah — 150 in all.
- Will my child share the name Avah with classmates?
- Avah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Avah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Giada#1436 · Storm#1436 · Mercedes#1436 · Damaris#1436 · Robyn#1436 · Neveah#1436 · Monserrat#1443 · Rayleigh#1443
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Avah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Avah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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