Entry № 6575 · Aramaic origin

Martha Martha — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ MAR-thah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Aramaic
Meaning
"Lady (Jesus's friend; Martha Graham, founder of modern dance)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Aramaic)

A name that means "lady (jesus's friend; martha graham, founder of modern dance)".

Martha is from the Aramaic Marta (lady, mistress of the house). In the Gospel of Luke, Martha of Bethany was the sister of Lazarus and Mary who busied herself with hospitality while her sister sat at Jesus's feet — Jesus's gentle admonition ("Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things") gave the English language its archetype of the busy hostess.

Lady (Jesus's friend; Martha Graham, founder of modern dance) — a Aramaic name.

The name in its native script.

מַרְתָּא
Transliteration
Marta
Pronunciation
/ ˈmɑːr.θə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Martha stands.

Martha 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.

Marthas before her.

Real people
Martha Graham
Founder of modern dance.
1894 – 1991
Martha Washington
First US First Lady.
1731 – 1802
Martha Gellhorn
American war correspondent.
1908 – 1998
In fiction
Martha
Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1962

Names connected to Martha.

The number behind Martha.

7

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Martha reduce to 7, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.