Is Yael in the Bible?

Yes, under the English spelling Jael. Judges 4:17-22 names her as the wife of Heber the Kenite, in whose tent the commander Sisera is killed.

Is Yocheved the same name as Jochebed?

Yes. Behind the Name gives Yocheved as the Hebrew form of Jochebed, the woman Exodus 6:20 names as the mother of Moses.

Does Yael mean strength of God?

Behind the Name does not support that meaning. Its entry ties Jael, and so Yael, to the ibex or mountain goat.

What Are Christian Girl Names Starting With Y and Their Meanings?

Every biblical girl name that begins with Y is the Hebrew spelling of a woman whose name English Bibles print with J, or in one case with I.

Yael is Jael from Judges 4, Yocheved is Jochebed, the mother of Moses, and Yemima is Jemima, the first of Job's daughters. Choosing the Y form keeps the same woman and the same verse.

Outside scripture, Yolanda has a documented Christian bearer, Blessed Yolanda of Poland. Yvonne's name entry names no saint, and Yara and Yasmine are not in Behind the Name's list of biblical feminine names, while the lists that call them Christian name no saint or passage for them.

Quick Facts

Women in English Bibles with a Y name: None
Hebrew Y forms of biblical women: Twelve, each matching an English name in J or I
Yael: Hebrew form of Jael, Judges 4:17-22
Christian bearer outside scripture: Blessed Yolanda of Poland
Yvonne: French feminine of Yvon, with no saint in its name entry

Why does no woman in an English Bible have a name starting with Y?

The Hebrew Y names of biblical women reach English Bibles spelled with J in all but one case, so the women are present under a different initial. The feminine biblical names listed by Behind the Name include no entry under Y at all.

The same site's separate list of Biblical Hebrew forms has twelve Y entries, and each one is labelled as the Hebrew form of an English biblical name. Yael is given as the Hebrew form of Jael, Yocheved of Jochebed and Yemima of Jemima.

Eleven of the twelve English counterparts start with J. The exception is Yiska, the Hebrew form of Iscah, whom Genesis 11:29 names as a daughter of Haran.

For a family, the choice between the two initials is a choice of spelling. A daughter named Yocheved and a daughter named Jochebed carry the name of the same woman in Exodus, and the Y form keeps the Hebrew shape of the name.

Several of the Y forms also appear in that name reference as modern Hebrew given names.

Which biblical woman does each Hebrew Y name belong to?

Seven of the Y forms lead to women whose verses are easy to find, and the table pairs each spelling with the English name a Bible reader will meet.

Hebrew Y spellings and the biblical women they name
Hebrew form	English Bible name	Passage	What the passage records
Yael	Jael	Judges 4:17-22	Wife of Heber the Kenite; the commander Sisera dies in her tent
Yocheved	Jochebed	Exodus 6:20	Named in a genealogy as the mother of Moses
Yemima	Jemima (Jemimah in the NRSV Updated Edition)	Job 42:14	The first of Job's three daughters
Yehosheva'	Jehosheba	2 Kings 11:1-3	Hides the child Joash when Athaliah moves against the royal family
Yerusha	Jerusha	2 Kings 15:33	Named once as a king's mother
Yehudit	Judith	Genesis 26:34; the Book of Judith	Two different women: Esau's Hittite wife and the heroine of a deuterocanonical book
Yiska	Iscah	Genesis 11:29	Haran's daughter and Milcah's sister

The records behind these spellings differ greatly in length. Exodus 6:20 gives Jochebed a single line in a genealogy, and 2 Kings 15:33 names Jerusha only as a king's mother.

Jehosheba's passage, unlike these genealogy lines, records an action of her own (2 Kings 11:1-3).

Yehudit can point to either of two women named Judith.

Five rarer forms complete the twelve: Yedida for Jedidah, Yeho'addan for Jehoaddan, Yehudiya for Jehudijah, Yekholya for Jecoliah and Yeri'ot for Jerioth. Like the seven in the table, each is the Hebrew form of a woman's name that English Bibles spell with J.

What does Yael mean, and which story comes with it?

Yael is Behind the Name's Hebrew form of Jael, the woman in whose tent the commander Sisera is killed (Judges 4:17-22).

Behind the Name connects the name with an ibex or mountain goat. Several baby-name sites give Yael the meaning "strength of God", a gloss that this name source does not support.

Is Yolanda a saint's name?

Yolanda's clearest Christian bearer is Blessed Yolanda of Poland, whom Behind the Name identifies as a daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary who married a Polish duke. That source calls her Blessed, so describing Yolanda as a saint's name goes a step further than its record.

Yolanda of Vianden, a thirteenth-century countess in Luxembourg, became a nun and is the subject of a medieval legend.

The name reached English from medieval French Yolande, which Behind the Name calls probably a form of Violante, from Latin viola, "violet". The same entry allows that it may instead come from a Germanic source.

Lists that translate Yolanda flatly as "violet flower" therefore state as certain an origin that the name reference marks as probable.

Royal houses carried the name further: Hungary used it as Jolánta and Spain as Violante, a Latin empress of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries bore it, and a fifteenth-century duchess of Lorraine lies behind Tchaikovsky's opera Iolanta. Among all the bearers named here, Yolanda of Poland and Yolanda of Vianden are the two with a church record: one is called Blessed, the other became a nun.

Is Yvonne a Christian name, and where do Yara and Yasmine stand?

Yvonne is a French name, the feminine form of Yvon, and Behind the Name records regular English use from the late nineteenth century. Its entry names no saint and does not give the "archer" or "yew" meanings that some lists attach to Yvonne.

Yara, Yasmine, Yamileth and Yanira often appear on lists of Christian Y names. None of them is in Behind the Name's list of biblical feminine names, and the lists that call them Christian name no saint or passage for them.