Elaborated form of Johanna, from Hebrew meaning God is gracious.
Johannah is one of the oldest feminine forms of the great Semitic name Yohanan, meaning "God is gracious" in Hebrew. While Joanna and Hannah both descend from this root, Johannah is a doubly-accented form — retaining the full *Johan-* stem before the feminine *-nah* ending — that was particularly prevalent in German, Dutch, and Scandinavian communities where the spelling honored the name's biblical gravity. It appears in parish registers across Central Europe from the Reformation onward.
The New Testament gives the name its foundational bearer in Joanna, a woman healed by Jesus who subsequently traveled with him and was among those who witnessed the empty tomb — making her one of the first to report the Resurrection. The expanded Johannah form elevated this figure's name with additional orthographic reverence. In 18th and 19th century America, German and Dutch immigrant families brought Johannah with them, and it appears with some regularity in genealogical records from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the Midwest.
Johannah occupies an interesting position today: it contains both Hannah — one of the most popular girls' names of recent decades — and the beloved retro prefix Johan-, giving it a layered familiarity without being common. It reads as serious and historical, appropriate for a child who might grow into a judge, a novelist, or a scholar. Its three syllables have a deliberate, stately cadence, and its meaning — God is gracious — carries the same profound simplicity it has held for three thousand years.