Noa
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Movement
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Noa
Noa descends from the Hebrew No'ah meaning "motion" or "movement." The name appears in the Hebrew Bible (Numbers 26:33 and 27:1) as the name of one of the five daughters of Zelophehad — the women who successfully petitioned Moses for inheritance rights when their father died without male heirs, establishing one of the foundational moments of female legal rights in the Hebrew Bible. Despite the spelling similarity, this Noa ("motion," feminine) is etymologically distinct from Noah ("rest," masculine, the patriarch of the Flood — see separate entry).
The name has been used continuously in Hebrew-Jewish naming traditions for over three thousand years and is one of the most-popular girls' names in modern Israel. Notable bearers include Israeli singer Noa (Achinoam Nini, born 1969, the iconic Yemenite-Israeli singer who has performed for Pope John Paul II and the Pope's 1994 World Synod); contemporary American basketball player Noa Henderson; the contemporary fictional Noa of various contemporary novels.
Noa's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Jewish-American naming and the broader American taste for short, distinctive Hebrew-derived girls' names alongside Maya, Mia, and Aria. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the layered Hebrew-biblical-feminine-rights pedigree, the in-built distinctive movement etymological register, and the compact two-syllable structure with vowel-rich rhythm. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to Hebrew-derived naming. The name reads as both classical-biblical and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Noi and Nona each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Noa, Noah (the masculine Hebrew form), and Noya have their own SSA tracking. International forms include No'ah (Hebrew original), Noa (essentially identical across Hebrew/Spanish/Italian), and the original Hebrew No'ah.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Noa
US Popularity History (2014–2025)
Annual US births named Noa by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 1,348 girls named Noa (girl rank #226 that year).
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Noa Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Noa the strongest states are Hawaii, District of Columbia, New York.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | #82 | 31 |
| 2 | District of Columbia | #129 | 73 |
| 3 | New York | #212 | 779 |
| 4 | Maine | #229 | 16 |
| 5 | Connecticut | #319 | 79 |
| 6 | Kansas | #322 | 33 |
| 7 | Idaho | #323 | 21 |
| 8 | Massachusetts | #332 | 174 |
| 9 | New Jersey | #338 | 250 |
| 10 | Nevada | #358 | 37 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Noa in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Noa?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Noa to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Noa against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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