Entry № 87 · Germanic origin

Ada Ada — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ AY-dah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Germanic
Meaning
"Noble, adornment"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Hebrew)

A name that means "noble, adornment".

Ada has two origins. In Old Germanic, it is a short form of names beginning with adel, meaning "noble" — like Adelaide, Adeline, or Adela. In Hebrew, Adah (עָדָה) appears in the Book of Genesis as one of the wives of Lamech and means "adornment" or "ornament."

Ada has been borne by some of the most consequential figures in the history of computing: Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace — daughter of Lord Byron — is recognised as the first computer programmer for her notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine in the 1840s. The Ada programming language, used in aerospace and defence systems, is named after her.

The first computer programmer was named Ada. The name is back.

The name in its native script.

Ada
Transliteration
Ada
Pronunciation
/ ˈeɪ.də /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Ada stands.

Ada does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Adas before her.

Real people
Ada Lovelace
English mathematician. First computer programmer, for her work on the Analytical Engine.
1815 – 1852
Ada Limón
American poet. U.S. Poet Laureate 2022–2025.
born 1976
In fiction
Ada Monroe
Heroine of Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain.
1997 novel
Ada Shelby
Character in Peaky Blinders.
BBC, 2013–2022

Names connected to Ada.

The number behind Ada.

6

The Nurturer

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Ada reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.