Entry № 992 · Hebrew origin

Asnat Asnat — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ AHS-naht /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Hebrew
Meaning
"First female rabbi in history (Kurdish-Jewish)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Modern (Hebrew)

A name that means "first female rabbi in history (kurdish-jewish)".

Asnat is the Hebrew name from Genesis (Joseph's Egyptian wife). Asnat Barzani (c. 1590-1670) was the 17th-century Kurdish-Jewish woman widely considered the first female rabbi in Jewish history — head of the famous yeshiva of Mosul (in modern Iraq). Daughter of Rabbi Samuel Barzani, she inherited the rabbinic role from her father and her husband, taught Torah and Kabbalah to generations of students, and ruled on Jewish legal questions. Three Hebrew letters and poems by her survive.

Featured in modern Kurdish-Jewish memorial literature.

First female rabbi in history. Headed the yeshiva of Mosul in the 17th century.

The name in its native script.

אסנת
Transliteration
Asnat
Pronunciation
/ ˈɑːs.nɑːt /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Asnat stands.

Asnat 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.

Asnats before her.

Real people
Asnat Barzani
First female rabbi (Kurdish-Jewish).
c. 1590 – 1670
In fiction
Asnat
Kurdish-Jewish literary tradition.

Names connected to Asnat.

The number behind Asnat.

1

The Leader

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Asnat reduce to 1, The Leader. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.