Avah
- Pronunciation
- [A-vah]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Variant Of Medieval Given Names Avis And Aveline
- Origin
- English
About the Name Avah
Avah is a modern spelling variant rooted in the medieval given names Avis and Aveline, both of which circulated in England following the Norman Conquest. Avis may carry connections to the Latin avis ("bird"), while Aveline was a Norman French feminine name of Germanic origin. By the time Avah emerged in American naming culture, it had become less a direct revival of these medieval forms and more an independently appealing construction — the familiar soft "Ava" sound extended by a single letter into something slightly more distinctive. Its closest phonetic relative is the enormously popular Ava, yet Avah carves out its own gentle identity through that subtle visual and spoken difference.
The early 2000s through the 2010s saw a powerful surge in names ending with the "ah" sound — Ava, Eva, Mia, Isla — and Avah rode that same current. Parents who loved Ava but wanted something a touch less common found in Avah a near-twin that felt both fresh and deeply feminine. The two-syllable, vowel-rich structure gives it an effortless flow, and its soft consonant opening makes it approachable across many cultural backgrounds.
Avah first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2008 and reached its peak rank of #463 in 2018, reflecting a decade of steady growth. It last charted in the top-1000 in 2022, sitting at #938 that year after accumulating around 5,801 top-1000 births across its tracked span. Its arc — a measured rise followed by gradual retreat — mirrors the broader softening of the Ava-family name cluster as newer choices drew attention away.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Avah
US Popularity History (2008–2022)
Annual US births named Avah by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2018 with 679 girls named Avah (girl rank #463 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2022, ranked #938 for girls (288 US births). That's 475 places below its 2018 peak.
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 Avah 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 Avah the strongest states are Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #300 | 72 |
| 2 | Arkansas | #412 | 39 |
| 3 | Louisiana | #428 | 115 |
| 4 | South Carolina | #430 | 81 |
| 5 | Alabama | #514 | 92 |
| 6 | Kentucky | #536 | 49 |
| 7 | Michigan | #540 | 191 |
| 8 | Georgia | #544 | 219 |
| 9 | Oregon | #546 | 19 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #560 | 57 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #962 | 211 |
| 2 | Texas | #883 | 360 |
| 3 | Pennsylvania | #841 | 94 |
| 4 | New York | #822 | 63 |
| 5 | Colorado | #802 | 30 |
| 6 | Florida | #774 | 210 |
| 7 | Washington | #751 | 34 |
| 8 | Illinois | #747 | 105 |
| 9 | Arizona | #729 | 37 |
| 10 | Indiana | #716 | 65 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Avah in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Avah?
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 Avah to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Avah against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).