Hebrew place name meaning 'hornet' or 'wasp,' appearing in the Old Testament as Samson's birthplace.
Zorah carries ancient biblical geography in its syllables — it is the name of a city in the territory of Dan in the Hebrew scriptures, most famously known as the birthplace of Samson. The name is thought to derive from a Hebrew root meaning "sunrise" or possibly "hornet," and the town sits in the Sorek Valley west of Jerusalem, a landscape still identifiable today. In the Book of Judges, Zorah and its sister city Eshtaol frame Samson's origin story, lending the name a mythic, sun-scorched quality.
In the modern era the name is most closely associated with its variant Zora, immortalized by Zora Neale Hurston, the towering African-American anthropologist and novelist whose 1937 masterwork "Their Eyes Were Watching God" secured her place in the American literary canon. Hurston's work, rediscovered largely through the advocacy of Alice Walker in the 1970s, gave the name Zora — and by extension Zorah — a powerful cultural second life. The name also appears in operatic history through Dvorák's opera "The Devil and Kate" and recurs in various Slavic and Middle Eastern naming traditions.
Zorah has never been a mainstream name, which is precisely its appeal to parents seeking something rooted, resonant, and rare. Its two syllables have an open, sunlit sound that feels both ancient and surprisingly modern. In an era when parents reach for names like Zoe and Nora, Zorah offers a more uncommon path — one carrying biblical depth, literary gravitas, and the rolling geography of an ancient valley.