Ava

Where Ava comes from

The dictionaries list Ava as a given name — a female given name from Hebrew, a variant of Eva — but don't trace where it came from. The record below is what the SSA data shows.

  • Hebrew
  • Irish
  • Germanic
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #466 among girls — 13 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1922
    Ava Gardner born
    American actress
  3. 1994
    Ava Max born
    American singer and songwriter
  4. 2016
    Peak, #3
    16,354 babies named Ava — more than any year before or since.
  5. 2025
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #11.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name from Hebrew, a variant of Eva.
  • A female given name from Irish, an anglicization of Aoife.
  • A female given name from the Germanic languages, from a Germanic root *avi of uncertain meaning.
Namesakes
  • Ava Gardner · American actress, 1922–1990
  • Ava Max · American singer and songwriter, born 1994
  • Ava DuVernay · American film director, born 1972
  • Ava Devine · American pornographic actress, born 1974
  • Ava · first known German poet, 1060–1127

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.