Holiday Calendar

National Noah Day

Next celebratedMonday, October 26, 2026

English writes one name where Hebrew writes two: the man who built the ark, and one of five sisters who argued before Moses for their father's land. National Noah Day covers everyone who inherited the single spelling.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEOctober 26
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Every trail ends at somebody else's listing.

No founder or establishing act for National Noah Day has been located. It circulates on holiday-listing sites and on social media, with no announcement of its own at any date.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

English hears one name where Hebrew writes two

The Hebrew Bible gives the English name Noah to the man who built the ark and to one of five sisters who brought a case over their father's land. In Hebrew the two are not the same name. National Noah Day covers everyone who inherited the single English spelling.

The ark-builder is נֹחַ. Zelophehad's second daughter is נֹעָה, written with a different letter, which Behind the Name files as a distinct name meaning "motion". She and her sisters argued in front of Moses and the whole community that their dead father's land should not pass out of the family, and the ruling in Numbers 27 went their way.

The spelling they share has been at or near the top of the American list for thirteen years running: first or second among United States boys' names in every year from 2013 through 2025, on the Social Security Administration's own annual counts.

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ORIGINS

Noah Day history

INTRODUCTION

The English career of the name begins at the Protestant Reformation. Behind the Name records Noah in use as an English Christian name from then on, and common among the Puritans.

What followed in America was a long slide and then a reversal. The name lost ground for generations before it climbed higher than it had ever been.

CHAPTER 01

The Noah who told Americans how to spell

In 1782 Noah Webster was teaching school in Goshen, New York, and had grown dissatisfied with the textbooks American children were handed, which Britannica says ignored American culture. In 1783 he published The American Spelling Book, the volume schoolrooms knew as the Blue-Backed Speller.

Britannica records that the speller has never been out of print. His two-volume American Dictionary of the English Language followed in 1828, and he died in New Haven in 1843.

CHAPTER 02

Falling out of fashion

Federal statisticians have counted American first names since 1880, and Noah appears in every one of the 146 annual files. What those files show, year after year, is a name sinking.

Its lowest standing came in 1963, when 124 American boys in the whole country were given the name. It did not reach the top hundred until 1995.

CHAPTER 03

The climb, and a margin of ninety

By 2009 Noah had reached the American top ten. In 2013 it was first, on 18,291 births against Jacob's 18,201. The margin was 90 babies.

Across the decade as a whole the lead was comfortable. SSA's published table for the 2010s puts Noah first with 183,378, ahead of Liam's 174,017.

None of that explains the day. Its own record is empty: nobody has been identified as having started it, and nothing in the archives dates its beginning. It is kept anyway, by the people who have the name.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Noah Day

DRIFT

468 American girls were named Noah in 2025.

American girls named Noah stayed under twenty a year through the 1980s, and 468 were given the name in 2025. The related spelling Noa reached 1,348 girls that year, and Behind the Name places it under the feminine biblical Noah rather than the ark-builder's.

SCALE

More than half a million Americans carry it

Federal records count 529,602 American boys and 5,020 American girls given the name Noah since 1880. Those files list only names reaching five occurrences in a year, so the real totals are higher than that.

AUTHORSHIP

Nobody appears to own the day

One of the largest holiday-listing sites has never carried National Noah Day in any Internet Archive capture, while another day on that same site is captured there from 2018 onward. The name is doing the work here, not an organisation.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Webster publishes the Blue-Backed Speller

Noah Webster published The American Spelling Book, with total sales Britannica estimates as high as 100 million copies or more.

The first year of national counts

The earliest annual file of American first names records 103 boys given the name Noah.

Noah's lowest standing on the list

Only 124 boys in the United States were given the name, and it sat lower on the list than in any other year.

Into the American top hundred

The name reached the top 100 for the first time in the whole record, with 3,824 boys.

First appearance in the top ten

Noah entered the American top ten, with 17,262 boys given the name.

Noah tops the American list

It reached number one for the first time, and held the place for four straight years.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Noah Day Around the World

Sweden

Statistics Sweden recorded Noah as the most common first name given to newborn boys in 2021, 745 of them, its second year at the top and ahead of William on 726. In that same year the name ranked only second in the United States.

England and Wales

Noah led the boys' list in 2021 and 2022. James Tucker of the Office for National Statistics put it this way: "Noah was the most popular name for boys in 2022, for the second year in a row, having replaced Oliver at the top in 2021." It has ranked second in each year from 2023 to 2025.

Wales

In the 2025 registrations Noah is first in Wales, on 218 boys, while placing second in England on 3,841 and second across England and Wales combined on 4,075.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

National Noah Day was created in 2015.

The truth

The year circulates widely but rests on nothing traceable. The earliest independent listing of the day that turns up in the Internet Archive was captured in October 2022, and it names neither a founder nor a founding year.

The myth

Noah has always been a common American name.

The truth

Behind the Name puts it flatly: in the United States the name "was not overly popular in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it began slowly growing in the 1970s".

The myth

Noah simply means rest.

The truth

Two authorities point at two different Hebrew roots. Behind the Name derives the masculine name from nuah, "rest, repose", while the JPS Tanakh's own footnote to Genesis 5:29 connects it instead to niham, "to comfort". In the verse itself Lamech names the child for the relief he will bring.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Noah Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look up the decade the name peaked

The Social Security Administration publishes free tables of America's most common first names, decade by decade. Start with the SSA table for the 2010s and work backwards from there.

WRITE

Write the two Hebrew spellings by hand

Behind the Name gives the script for each: נֹחַ for the ark-builder and נֹעָה for Zelophehad's daughter. Copy the feminine entry beside the masculine one and you can see exactly where the two part.

FOLLOW

Follow the inheritance case past the verdict

The ruling came with conditions, and the Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women sets out what the sisters won and what it cost them. It is a short encyclopedia article, and it takes the story well past the verdict.

TELL

Tell a Noah which name they actually have

Hebrew writes the two biblical names differently and English does not. Say so to a Noah you know, and the day has something in it beyond the spelling.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Noah Day?

1 / 8

How many American boys were named Noah in 1963, the year the name stood lowest on the list?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found, and the US Federal Register carries nothing under the name, so October 26 is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

12sources
8primary records
7independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security Administration2026
Popular Baby Names: national data, names.zip (yob1880 to yob2025)
The agency's year-by-year count of every American first name given to at least five babies.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top names of the 2010s
The agency's decade ranking, with Noah first on 183,378 and Liam second on 174,017.
View source
Office for National Statistics2026-07
Baby names for boys in England and Wales: 2025
The 2025 top-100 tables for England, for Wales, and for the two combined.
View source
Office for National Statistics2023
Baby names in England and Wales 2022: does your favourite make the top 100?
The release announcing Noah's second year at number one, with a statistician's comment.
View source
Office for National Statistics2024-12
Baby names in England and Wales: 2023
The bulletin recording Muhammad overtaking Noah, and the separate top three for Wales.
View source
Statistics Sweden2022-01
Alice och Noah återigen i topp 2021
Sweden's official name statistics for 2021, with Noah first on 745 newborn boys.
View source
Sefaria2023
Genesis 5:29, JPS Tanakh with the Masoretic Hebrew
Lamech naming his son, with the translators' footnote linking the name to "comfort".
View source
Sefaria2023
Numbers 27:1, JPS Tanakh with the Masoretic Hebrew
The five daughters of Zelophehad named in Hebrew, and the ruling that follows.
View source
Additional coverage
Jewish Women's Archive
Daughters of Zelophehad: Bible, Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women
Katharine Doob Sakenfeld on what the inheritance case established and what it restricted.
View source
Behind the Name
Noah (1)
The masculine name's Hebrew root, its Puritan-era English career and its American slump.
View source
Behind the Name
Noah (2)
The feminine biblical Noah, written differently in Hebrew and glossed as "motion".
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Noah Webster, American lexicographer
Webster's dates, the 1783 Blue-Backed Speller and the two-volume 1828 dictionary.
View source
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