Entry № 4051 · Hebrew origin

Hannah Hannah — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ HAN-ah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Hebrew
Meaning
"Grace, favour"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Hebrew Bible)

A name that means "grace, favour".

Hannah comes from the Hebrew Ḥannāh (חַנָּה), meaning "grace" or "favour." In the Hebrew Bible, Hannah is the long-childless wife of Elkanah who prays so fervently at the temple that the priest Eli initially thinks she is drunk; her prayer is answered, and she becomes the mother of the prophet Samuel.

The name has been continuously used in Jewish communities for nearly three thousand years.

Grace, favour — a Hebrew name.

The name in its native script.

חַנָּה
Transliteration
Ḥannāh
Pronunciation
/ ˈhæn.ə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Hannah stands.

Hannah 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.

Hannahs before her.

Real people
Hannah Arendt
German-American political theorist. Author of The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem.
1906 – 1975
Hannah Montana
Stage name of Miley Cyrus's titular Disney Channel character.
2006–2011
In fiction
Hannah
Mother of the prophet Samuel in the Hebrew Bible.
1 Samuel 1–2

Names connected to Hannah.

The number behind Hannah.

1

The Leader

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