Feminine form of David, from Hebrew meaning "beloved."
Dava is a name of quiet mystery, most likely a feminine elaboration of David — one of the great names of the Hebrew Bible — though its precise origin is open to interpretation. David derives from the Hebrew *Dāwīḏ*, whose meaning has been traditionally rendered as "beloved," though some scholars also connect it to a root meaning "chieftain" or "uncle." The name of the shepherd-king who slew Goliath and wrote the Psalms, David became one of the most given names in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures alike.
Dava, by softening the final consonant into an open vowel, transforms that royal and scriptural weight into something more intimate and lyrical. The name appears in small but persistent numbers across Eastern Europe and among Sephardic Jewish communities, where it functions as a natural feminine form. In twentieth-century America, it surfaced independently as an invented or adapted form, chosen by parents who wanted the resonance of the David root without the overtly masculine ending.
It shares this creative space with names like Davina and Davida, which accomplish a similar feminization through different suffixes. The science journalist and author Dava Sobel — best known for *Longitude* (1995) and *Galileo's Daughter* — has given the name a quiet, distinctly intellectual association. Her work, which brings rigorous history to general readers with elegant prose, has made Dava the name of a certain kind of curious, precise, and gifted mind. For parents who know her writing, the name carries that specific weight of recommended excellence — rare, recognizable in the right circles, and genuinely earned.