Ada

German

"noble, nobility"

Ada Origin and Meaning

The name Ada is girl's name of German origin meaning "noble, nobility".

Ada is derived from the German name Adelaide, which came from the ancient name Adalheidis. The root, adal, is a Germanic word meaning "noble." Ada can also be considered a variation of the biblical name Adah, pronounced AH-da, one of the first girls’ names mentioned in the Book of Genesis.

Ada is one of the classic baby names for girls that is suddenly super stylish again. A favorite at the end of the nineteenth century, Ada is an alternative to the over-popular Ava. Ada is also part of the trend toward simple, old-fashioned names beginning with a vowel, like Ivy and Ella.

A worthy namesake is Ada Lovelace, mathematician daughter of the poet Lord Byron, who worked with Charles Babbage on the forerunners to the calculator and the computer. In his poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron addresses her as "Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart."

Ada has a number of fictional references as well, appearing in Dickens's Bleak House and Nabokov's 1969 novel Ada; additional characters with the name were portrayed by Holly Hunter in The Piano and Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain.

Ada returned to the Top 1000 in 2004, after being off since 1992; by contrast, Ada was a Top 100 name in the 1880s.

Ada Popularity

• 180 US 2021
• 39 Nameberry 2022
• 211 Future 2028
• 38 England 2020
• 70 Scotland 2021
• 45 Ireland 2021
• 78 New Zealand 2021
• 309 Germany 2016
• 15 Norway 2020
• 87 Poland 2021
• 24 Turkey 2021