Hebrew name meaning myrtle tree; the birth name of Queen Esther in the Bible.
Hadassah is a Hebrew name meaning “myrtle,” the fragrant evergreen shrub associated in Jewish tradition with beauty, blessing, and ritual symbolism. It is best known as the Hebrew name of Queen Esther in the Bible: “Hadassah, that is, Esther.” That dual naming is central to its story.
Esther, the Jewish heroine who becomes queen of Persia and saves her people, is one of the most enduring women in biblical literature, and Hadassah represents her original identity within the Jewish world. The name therefore carries botanical delicacy on the surface, but underneath it is inseparable from courage, hiddenness, wisdom, and survival. Historically, Hadassah has remained especially meaningful in Jewish communities, where its biblical and Hebrew character has always been legible.
It has never been as widely generalized in English as Esther, perhaps because its sound remained more distinctly Semitic and because Esther became the form naturalized through broader Christian and European traditions. Yet Hadassah’s very specificity is part of its power. In the modern era it also gained institutional resonance through Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, founded in the early 20th century, which linked the name with Jewish philanthropy, medicine, and public leadership.
Today Hadassah can feel both ancient and strikingly fresh: floral, scriptural, and strong without hardness. It is a name of rooted identity, carrying the memory of a biblical heroine who moved through history under more than one name and never lost herself.