From Hebrew 'adah' meaning 'adornment' or 'beauty'; one of the earliest names recorded in Genesis.
One of the oldest names in recorded scripture, Adah comes from the Hebrew root meaning 'ornament' or 'adornment.' It appears twice in Genesis — first as a wife of Lamech and again as a wife of Esau — making it among the earliest feminine names in the biblical canon. This double appearance gave the name a sense of quiet persistence, as though it were quietly insisting on being remembered across generations of text.
The name gained renewed literary life in 1821 when Lord Byron chose it for the devoted daughter of Adam in his dramatic poem Cain: A Mystery. Byron's Adah is tender, courageous, and philosophically earnest — a counterweight to Cain's restless nihilism — and the portrayal introduced the name to the Romantic imagination. The 19th-century American actress and poet Adah Isaacs Menken, a celebrated and scandalous figure who counted Dickens and Dumas among her admirers, wore the name with audacious flair.
Modern usage of Adah is rare, which is precisely part of its appeal for parents seeking something genuinely ancient without feeling heavy. Its two syllables fall with a gentle, open sound, and its spelling is instantly explicable from the biblical record. In an era of invented names, Adah offers something genuinely different: a name so old it has almost become new again.