Was the Cushite wife of Moses in Numbers 12 Zipporah?

Numbers 12:1 does not say. It calls her “the Cushite woman whom he had married” without a name, so identifying her with Zipporah is an interpretation rather than a statement of the text.

Are Zebidah and Zebudah different names?

They are two spellings for one woman, the mother of King Jehoiakim in 2 Kings 23:36. NRSVUE prints Zebidah, and Behind the Name notes Zebudah in some versions.

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

Behind the Name's list of biblical feminine names gives seven women whose names begin with Z, and most of them are named in a single verse or a short passage. Zipporah, the wife of Moses, is the exception: Exodus records her marriage, her sons, and a hard scene in which she acts and speaks.

Zilpah and Zillah come from Genesis, Zeruiah, Zibiah, and Zebidah are named as the mothers of David's nephews and two kings, and Zeresh advises Haman in the Book of Esther.

Zoe and Zita entered Christian use later, through early martyrs and a thirteenth-century servant of Lucca. Zuleika, often listed as biblical, comes from later Persian tradition.

Quick Facts

Z women in Behind the Name's biblical list: Zipporah, Zilpah, Zeresh, Zillah, Zeruiah, Zibiah, Zebidah
Fullest record: Zipporah, across Exodus 2, 4, and 18
Named once as a king's mother: Zibiah (2 Kings 12:1) and Zebidah (2 Kings 23:36)
Later Christian names: Zoe, a Greek word used for Eve; Zita of Lucca, patron of domestic servants
Often mislabeled as biblical: Zuleika, a name from later Persian tradition

Which biblical girl names start with Z?

Zipporah, Zilpah, Zeresh, Zillah, Zeruiah, Zibiah, and Zebidah are the seven women whose names begin with Z in Behind the Name's list of biblical feminine names. What the text says about them ranges from a narrated scene with Zipporah's own words to a single clause naming a king's mother.

The table orders the seven from the fullest record to the thinnest, because that difference matters more to a namesake than the initial they share.

Z women in Behind the Name's biblical list, from the fullest record to the briefest
Name	Passage	Who she is	What the text records	Gloss in Behind the Name
Zipporah	Exodus 2:21-22; 4:24-26; 18:2-4	Wife of Moses	Marriage, two sons, the circumcision scene and her spoken line	From tsippora, bird
Zilpah	Genesis 29:24; 30:9-13	Leah's servant, given to Jacob	Mother of Gad and Asher, whom Leah names	Frailty
Zeresh	Esther 5:10-14	Wife of Haman	Advice to build a pole for hanging Mordecai	Unknown, probably Persian
Zillah	Genesis 4:19-23	Wife of Lamech	Mother of Tubal-cain and Naamah; addressed in Lamech's boast	Shade
Zeruiah	1 Chronicles 2:16	Sister of David	Mother of Abishai, Joab, and Asahel	From tsori, balm or salve
Zibiah	2 Kings 12:1	Mother of King Jehoash	Her name and her town, Beer-sheba	Female gazelle
Zebidah (Zebudah)	2 Kings 23:36	Mother of King Jehoiakim	Her name, her father Pedaiah, and her town, Rumah	From zabad, to give

None of the glosses in the last column comes from the passages themselves. Behind the Name derives Zipporah from a Hebrew word for bird, for example, while Exodus never connects that meaning to anything she does.

Zeresh is the one name the reference leaves unresolved, listing its meaning as unknown and probably of Persian origin.

What does Zipporah do in Exodus 4?

In Exodus 4:24-26, at a night stop on the way, the LORD tries to kill “him,” and Zipporah responds by circumcising her son. She then says, “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!”

Zipporah is the one who acts in the scene, and the only words the passage records are hers. That makes her record unusual among the Z women, most of whom never speak.

Her story begins earlier, in Exodus 2:21-22, where she is given to Moses as his wife in Midian. She bears a son, and Moses names him Gershom because he has been “an alien residing in a foreign land.”

Exodus 18:2-4 adds that Moses had sent Zipporah away, and that Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, brought her back with both of her sons, Gershom and Eliezer. The text does not say when or why she was sent away.

The Exodus 4 passage leaves its central questions open. The English “him” does not settle whether Moses or the son is under attack, and the verses give no reason for the attack or explain her words.

Any single explanation of the scene therefore goes beyond what Exodus states. A family choosing Zipporah takes a namesake who acts quickly in a hard scene, without a settled lesson attached to it.

Numbers 12:1 refers to “the Cushite woman whom he had married” without giving her a name. Identifying that woman with Zipporah is an interpretation; the verse itself does not make the link.

Are Zilpah and Zillah the same woman?

No. Zilpah belongs to Jacob's household in Genesis 29-30, while Zillah belongs to Lamech's household in Genesis 4, many generations earlier in the Genesis story.

Laban gives his servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah when Leah marries Jacob (Genesis 29:24). Later Leah gives Zilpah to Jacob as a wife, and Zilpah bears two sons (Genesis 30:9-13).

Leah, not Zilpah, names both boys, calling them Gad and Asher with words of good fortune and happiness. Zilpah never speaks in these verses, even though two tribes of Israel later trace their descent to Gad and Asher.

Zillah is one of Lamech's two wives, alongside Adah (Genesis 4:19).

She bears Tubal-cain, who made tools of bronze and iron, and his sister is Naamah (Genesis 4:22). Lamech then tells Adah and Zillah that he has killed a man (Genesis 4:23).

Zillah is addressed rather than quoted, so her record is that of a mother and a listener to a boast of violence.

Behind the Name glosses Zilpah as frailty and Zillah as shade. The two names differ by a single sound in English, and confusing them attaches a namesake to the wrong household and the wrong chapter.

Zeruiah, Zibiah, and Zebidah appear as mothers of named men

Each of these three women is named inside a family list or a king's introduction, and the verse that names her says almost nothing else about her.

1 Chronicles 2:13-16 lists the children of Jesse and names Zeruiah and Abigail as the sisters of David. It then gives Zeruiah's three sons: Abishai, Joab, and Asahel.

Zeruiah's place in the Bible is therefore as David's sister and the mother of three of his nephews. Behind the Name traces the name to the Hebrew tsori, balm or salve.

2 Kings 12:1 names Zibiah of Beer-sheba as the mother of Jehoash, who reigned forty years in Jerusalem; the same king appears as the child Joash in 2 Kings 11.

The next verse says Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the LORD all his days because the priest Jehoiada instructed him. The text credits the priest, not the mother, for the king's conduct.

2 Kings 23:36 names Zebidah, daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah, as the mother of Jehoiakim, who began to reign at twenty-five and reigned eleven years.

NRSVUE prints the name as Zebidah, and Behind the Name notes the spelling Zebudah in some versions. Both spellings refer to the same woman in the same verse.

With any of these three names, a family gets a real biblical woman and a verse to cite, but no scene and no recorded words. A personality described for Zeruiah, Zibiah, or Zebidah comes from the writer of the list, not from the Bible.

Zeresh belongs to Haman's plan against Mordecai

Zeresh is Haman's wife in the Book of Esther, and in Esther 5:10-14 she takes part in his plan against Mordecai.

There, Zeresh and Haman's friends tell him to have a pole fifty cubits high made so that Mordecai can be hanged on it. Haman likes the advice and has the pole made.

Zeresh is a genuine biblical name, and the passage cited here remembers her for that advice. Because Behind the Name lists the meaning as unknown, there is no separate gloss that would give the name a different association.

How did Zoe and Zita become Christian names?

Zoe is the Greek word for life, and Behind the Name records that Hellenized Jews adopted it early as a translation of Eve. That makes Zoe a Greek rendering connected to Eve rather than the name of a woman in English Bibles.

The same reference names two early saints called Zoe, one martyred under the emperor Hadrian and one under Diocletian, as well as an eleventh-century Byzantine empress.

It also notes that Zoe has been more common among Eastern Christians and has been used in English only since the nineteenth century.

Zita's Christian association comes from a thirteenth-century household servant in Lucca, Italy. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) says she was born at Montsegradi, entered the service of the Fatinelli family at twelve, and later managed their household.

The same entry gives her death at Lucca on 27 April 1271, while many other references give 1272. Her office was approved under Pope Leo X, and Pope Innocent XII gave solemn approval to her cult in 1696.

The Catholic Encyclopedia calls Zita the heavenly patroness of domestic servants and records that Dante called Lucca “Santa Zita.” Her namesake is a woman remembered for a working life in one household rather than for a martyrdom or a royal title.

Which Z names on popular lists are not biblical women?

Zuleika is a common false entry. Lists present her as the wife of Potiphar from the Joseph story, but the name comes from later tradition rather than from Genesis.

Behind the Name traces it to that later tradition, notably the fifteenth-century Persian poet Jami, who gave the name to Potiphar's wife. It calls the meaning uncertain, possibly Arabic, and notes that she became a frequent subject of poems and tales.

Longer lists also add Zin, Zoan, Zenas, and Zelotes, which belong to places or men in the Bible rather than to women.

Once those entries are removed, the Z list holds the seven women in Behind the Name's list of biblical feminine names and two later Christian names, Zoe and Zita.