Entry № 8073 · Hebrew origin

Penninah Penninah — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ PEN-ee-nah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Hebrew
Meaning
"Pearl, ruby (Hannah's rival)"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Ancient (Hebrew Bible)

A name that means "pearl, ruby (hannah's rival)".

Penninah (פְּנִנָּה) is the Hebrew word for "pearl" or "ruby." In 1 Samuel 1:2, Penninah was the second wife of Elkanah — Hannah's rival who provoked her over her childlessness, before Hannah eventually bore Samuel.

Penninah is rare but iconic in biblical scholarship.

Pearl. Hannah's rival, mother of many.

The name in its native script.

פְּנִנָּה
Transliteration
Pəninnāh
Pronunciation
/ ˈpɛn.iː.nə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Penninah stands.

Penninah does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Penninahs before her.

Real people
Penninah
Common in religious families.
In fiction
Penninah
Hannah's rival in 1 Samuel.
Hebrew Bible

Names connected to Penninah.

The number behind Penninah.

9

The Giver

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Penninah reduce to 9, The Giver. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.