Hannah

Meaning: favor, grace

Origin: Hebrew

Hannah comes directly from the Hebrew Ḥannāh, built on the root ḥ-n-n, 'to show favor.' In the Hebrew Bible she is the mother of the prophet Samuel, whose long-awaited pregnancy gives the name its sense of an answered prayer. English kept this form largely through direct translation of the Old Testament, running in parallel with Anna, the Greek and Latin route the same underlying name took into Christian Europe.