Odeya comes from Hebrew and means I will thank God or thanksgiving to God.
Odeya is a Hebrew name generally understood to derive from the root "hodaya" (הודיה), a compound of "hod" (glory, acknowledgment) and "Yah" (a shortened divine name), yielding the meaning "I will praise God" or "thanksgiving to the Lord." In this it joins a family of Hebrew names — Judah, Todah, Hodaya — that express gratitude as one of the highest spiritual acts. The name appears in the Hebrew Bible as a masculine name for a Levite in the post-exilic community (Nehemiah 10:18), though in contemporary usage it functions almost exclusively as a feminine name.
The name received considerable public attention through Israeli-American actress Odeya Rush, born in Haifa in 1997 and known for her roles in films including The Giver (2014) and Lady Bird (2017). Her visibility in English-language cinema introduced the name to audiences well beyond its traditional Hebrew-speaking communities, and her poise and intelligence in interviews lent the name a particular quality of quiet confidence in the cultural imagination. Odeya has a sound that travels beautifully across language families — the "oh-DAY-ah" pronunciation has a warm musicality that feels at home in both Hebrew liturgy and contemporary naming culture.
It is rare enough in most Western countries to feel genuinely distinctive, yet its structure is immediately pronounceable and its meaning is among the most grace-filled that the naming tradition has to offer. It is a name that arrives as a benediction.