Eden

How to say it

/ˈi.dən/

What it means

Hebrew ʿēden, 'delight' or 'pleasure.' The garden where Adam and Eve lived before the fall, and a place name that became a given name in modern times.

Eden comes from the Hebrew ʿēden ('delight') and refers in Genesis to the garden where Adam and Eve lived. As a given name it's mostly modern: rare before the 1990s, then climbing fast as a unisex pick. It reads more often as feminine in US records but appears for both. The name has paradise + simplicity going for it: two syllables, easy spelling, no nicknames required. Some Hebrew-speaking families also use Eden as a feminine name in Israel directly from the biblical text.

Heads-up notes

• Pop culture

  The Garden of Eden is the unavoidable association; some parents lean into the paradise sense, others find it heavy. Eden Hazard the Belgian footballer is the modern cultural counterweight.

Who's worn it

Historical figures, characters, and public faces who share the name. The cultural surface, for whatever weight you want to give it.

• Eden Hazard Belgian footballer, Chelsea and Real Madrid winger
• Garden of Eden The paradise of Genesis, the dominant religious reference

Spelling variants

• Eaden

Names with the same feeling

• Nora Honor, or 'light'
• Isla Island
• Ava Bird, life
• Ivy Ivy plant
• Aria Air, melody, or lioness

See Eden from another angle