Noah in Arabic: نوح, نوا, and Which One to Use

Noah in Arabic is نوح (Nūḥ), the prophet of the Flood in the Quran and in the Arabic Bible alike. For an English speaker named Noah, Arabic often writes the English sound instead, نوا (Nowa), as Arabic Wikipedia does for the sprinter Noah Lyles. Use نوح for the Arabic name and نوا for the English one.

Copy the form you need. The Listen button reads each spelling in your device's Arabic voice, if it has one, so you can hear how نوح and نوا differ.

Noah in Arabic calligraphy, in three styles

Renders of نوح and نوا, in Amiri, Reem Kufi and Aref Ruqaa, drawn straight from the font files.

نوح or نوا: which spelling should you use?

Use نوح when you mean the name itself: it is how the Quran names the prophet, Surah 71 of the Quran is called Nūḥ after him, and Arabic Wikipedia's article on the Noah of Genesis is titled نوح. Use نوا for an English speaker called Noah. Arabic Wikipedia is not consistent about modern Noahs, so the table further down is a fair picture of current use.

How Arabic Wikipedia writes people called Noah

For the prophet Noah, Arabic Wikipedia uses the Arabic form. For the four modern people called Noah in the table below, its titles write نوا once, نوح twice and نواه once. Our name tool gives نوا, the spelling of Noah Lyles's article.

The titles disagree: the actor Noah Centineo and the lexicographer Noah Webster have نوح, the director Noah Baumbach has نواه, and the sprinter Noah Lyles has نوا.

How نوح is spelled, letter by letter

نوح has three letters, read from right to left, starting with the letter ن, nūn. One letter, و wāw, never joins the letter after it, so نوح always shows one small gap. Arabic writes only long vowels as letters. The one short vowel is a mark that everyday spelling leaves out; نُوح shows it.

What does Noah mean?

Noah means rest, repose, according to Behind the Name. The Hebrew name Noaḥ comes from the root nuaḥ, to rest. نوح keeps its consonants: n, a long ū written with wāw, and the breathy ḥ at the end, which English drops. Wiktionary lists it as a given name romanized Noah, Nuh and Nooh. Noah was the second most common name given to boys born in the US in 2024, according to the Social Security Administration's announced 2024 list.

Two related names on this site are Adam in Arabic, آدم and Abraham in Arabic, إبراهيم. For Arabic names to choose from, browse the Arabic boy names with their meanings, part of our Arabic vocabulary lists.

Write نوح in more fonts and download it

Paste نوح into the box below, or into our Arabic calligraphy generator, to draw it in 12 more fonts and save it as a PNG.

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