Uriyah is a Hebrew biblical name meaning Yahweh is my light or God is my flame.
Uriyah is a variant spelling of Uriah, a Hebrew name of considerable antiquity and drama: Uriyahu (אוּרִיָּהוּ) means 'God is my light' or 'flame of God,' composed of uri (my light, my flame) and yah, the contracted divine name. Uriah the Hittite is one of the Old Testament's most poignant figures — a loyal soldier in King David's army whose fate was sealed when David coveted his wife Bathsheba. The story, told in 2 Samuel, became a touchstone of literary and moral philosophy: Uriah is conspicuously righteous while the king who destroys him is not.
His name became synonymous, in some cultural readings, with dignified innocence. In the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens weaponized the name in the opposite direction: Uriah Heep in David Copperfield is one of literature's great hypocrites, a man whose oily declarations of being 'ever so 'umble' disguise calculating ambition. Dickens's Uriah cast a long shadow over the name in British and American culture, suppressing its use for much of the twentieth century.
The -yah spelling, however, repositions the name firmly in the tradition of Hebrew scriptural names — Jeremiah, Elijah, Isaiah — where its divine meaning is front and center and the Dickens association recedes. Uriyah has seen a quiet resurgence in communities that prize biblical names with deep roots. The spelling with 'y' gives it a warmer, more flowing appearance and aligns it visually with Eliyah and Josiyah, reinforcing its place in a family of names that feel both ancient and spiritually intentional. It is a name for a child parents want to carry a sense of luminous purpose.