What does the name Noah mean?

Lamech’s words

Noah’s name comes at the end of the long family tree of Genesis 5. His father Lamech is a farmer working ground that God cursed after Eden, when he told Adam, “the ground is cursed for your sake” (Genesis 3:17). When the boy is born, Lamech gives him a name and a hope.

He named him Noah, saying, “This one will comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, caused by the ground which Yahweh has cursed.”

In Hebrew the name is Noach, just two letters, nun and chet. It sounds like nuach, to rest, to settle, to be at ease. Lamech’s verb, yenachamenu, “will comfort us,” starts with the same sounds but comes from a different root. That is typical of Bible names: they are explained by sound, not by grammar, as with Israel or Moses. The Septuagint, the old Greek translation, smooths the gap: there Lamech says the boy will give them rest.

Rest and comfort, all through the flood

Once you hear the sounds n and ch, they keep coming back in the story, like a refrain.

• Regret. “Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth” (6:6). The Hebrew verb for being sorry comes from the same root as Lamech’s “comfort.” The father hoped for comfort; God feels grief.
• Favor. “But Noah found favor in Yahweh’s eyes” (6:8). Favor is chen, the two letters of Noach in reverse.
• Rest. The ship “rested” on Ararat’s mountains (8:4), with the verb behind Noah’s name.
• No resting place. The first dove “found no place to rest her foot” (8:9): in Hebrew, no manoach.
• The aroma. After the flood “Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma” of Noah’s offering (8:21). The Hebrew is reach hannichoach, a soothing, restful smell.

Read that way, the name carries the whole plot: a world with no rest, a boat that comes to rest, and a God who is soothed.

Did Noah bring the comfort?

Lamech hoped his son would ease the curse on the ground. After the flood God says, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake” (8:21), and Noah becomes the first man in the Bible to plant a vineyard (9:20). Some readers see Lamech’s hope answered in wine, which a psalm praises as “wine that makes the heart of man glad” (Psalm 104:15). Genesis does not let the picture stay rosy: the vineyard ends with Noah drunk in his tent and a curse on his grandson Canaan (9:21–25).

Later writers kept the name as a byword for a righteous man in a ruined world. Ezekiel lists “Noah, Daniel, and Job” together (Ezekiel 14:14), Isaiah speaks of “the waters of Noah” (Isaiah 54:9), and Hebrews says that by faith Noah “prepared a ship for the saving of his house” (Hebrews 11:7).

The name today

From Hebrew Noach came Greek and Latin Noe, Portuguese Noé and English Noah. In Arabic he is Nuh, and the 71st sura of the Quran bears his name. The name has had a modern revival: in the United States, Noah was the most popular name for baby boys from 2013 to 2016.

One mix-up to avoid. Among the five daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers 26:33 is a woman whose name English Bibles also spell Noah. In Hebrew it is a different name, No’ah, written with another letter, and it has nothing to do with the flood.