Noah/Noa is a girls name across the world.

The version I looked up had her as 'Noah'

@KirstenBlest Ah, yes.I know about her, but I've only ever seen her spelled Noa as a transliteration of the Hebrew.

@CurlewKate , Numbers 26:33

Please stick with Noa if you are going to do it, don’t add the H or people will think it’s a boy

@CurlewKate , I agree.

One of my acquaintances has a daughter with a feminised version of a boy's name (e.g. Albie short for Alberte) and as she is DD2 it looks so much like they wanted a boy. The DD1 has a standard girl's name.

Noa and Noah sound very different in Hebrew and wouldn’t be confused and Noa is very sweet. I’m still marveling that someone called a girl Ezra, that sounds bizarre to me. Like calling a girl Alan or Colin. Just so firmly male.

ETA I’m Jewish and Noa is not uncommon in my circles, and as Noah is pronounced Noakh or Noy-akh, culturally it wouldn’t be confused with Noa, so wouldn’t cause a girl problems with bullying. I think it’s a nice name, but if culturally you risk your daughter being teased then I wouldn’t use it.

I was about to say Casey is the only one of those I haven’t taught.

Not particularly common is not the same as so rare you will never come across one. Not every girl in a class is called Olivia or some variation of Ellie/Ella.

But please don't use boy's names for girls unless you also use girl's names for boys. It's so depressingly sexist.

@CurlewKate , in the ark with Mr Noah.

Someone else mentioned 1996. The children I know have a variety of names and I can only think of one each of Olivia, Lily and Freya. There are duplicates of names outside the top 100 and top 200.

I didn't know there was a woman called Noah in the Bible. Where is she?

@KirstenBlest someone born in 1996 would be 27 now though, so not sure why that’s relevant? The Riley I teach is Year 7, so born in 2011/2012.

In secondary I teach around 200 different kids every year! The names mentioned are not even the most unusual by far. The point I was trying to make is that in that context a female Noa would really not be seen as that unusual.

It may seem in someone’s limited pool of baby groups and friends that all the girls are being called Olivia, Lily, Freya etc but that really is not the case. In my experience, anyway (large state secondary school, pretty average town).

@Coffeedrinker7, You don't need to prove it, and Charlie and Billie would probably not be that unusual, but in 1996 only 9 girl Rileys were registered.

@miniaturepixieonacid, I didn't accuse anyone of lying, but I expect that if I mentioned Balonz and L-a, someone would have taught both.
The stats are based on the percentage of girls or boys registered with the first name. Names that have different spellings (e.g. Sophia/Sofia, Muhammad/Mohammed/Mohamed) get counted separately. Girls and boys are counted separately.

@miniaturepixieonacid I love that you’ve tried to work it out! @KirstenBlest not quite sure how I can prove it without showing you my registers but I promise you I have taught female students with those names. I also have a friend with a girl called Charlie (to be fair she was christened Charlotte), I’ve also taught a Jamie-Jo and now I come to think of it, my DD used to have a friend called Billie!

Definitely, less, I agree. But they're not rare names, just relatively unusual ones. I don't know what the probablility is (I'm shit at maths, I teach performing arts !) but it's not implausible.
5 of the rarest girl names I've ever taught are:
Chymme (too rare to rank)
Aven (0-5 born each year)
Fabia (0-7 born each year)
Athene (0-7 born each year)
Delphi (6-20 born each year)
I'd agree with you if the names were as rare as those but they aren't anywhere close, especially given that the girls could easily have been born closer to 1996 than 2023 when those kinds of names were much more common.
Idk about other spellings. I don't know how the stats are made.

But taught all of them? The probability is much less. And does it count if they are Charly, Jaime, Casey, Rylie, Sidonie ....?

So it does. I didn't think to hover over the graph. Okay, so there have been an average of around 150 Sydneys born between 1996 and 2006. I started teaching in 2006 (7-13 year olds) when the 1996 Sydneys were 10. So 17 X 150 = 2550 possible Sydneys. So, given a secondary aged child has around 12 teachers a year, it's hardly surprising that huge numbers of teachers will have met one.

Love Noa for a girl, don't like the Noah spelling for a girl. (i also like Jamie, Andi, and Billie for a girl)

To me it says old beardy Bible man.
Noah has been the most popular boys nabe in this country for many years - it’s firmly established as a boys name.

Darkgreener does give the number.

KirstenBlest You underestimate how many children get taught by one teacher over the course of a full career. I've taught over 200 children per year for the past 17 years. That's 3400 children and I've still got around 28 years and another 5600 children to go. Yes, of course I've taught Olivias, Sophias, Islas, Freyas and Lilys. Around 20-30 Olivias, Sophias and Lilys and 4 or 5 Islas and Freyas. With probabbly lots more to come. But, in those 17 years, have also been 1 Jamie (Jamie-Leigh to be precise), 1 Sydney (with a twin sister called Atlanta), 2 Charlies (1 spelled Charly) and 1 Riley (as well as 1 boy Riley). It's a long way from unbelievable to have taught children with rarer names over a long career and you have no idea whether the poster you accused of lying has got 1 year under her belt or 40. It's far less likely that she would bother to write that she had taught fictional children!

Darkgreener doesn't seem to tell you numbers of babies, just a rank. As an example, Sydney is 431 for girls. I can't seem to find those full ONS lists anymore that used to be available as Excel spreadsheets but the rankings used to run up to about 5000 before the names got too rare to be published (fewer than 3 babies a year).

@miniaturepixieonacid , they aren't much used. Look them up on darkgreener. If you said you'd taught Olivia, Sophia, Isla, Lily and Freya that would be a lot more believable because 1000s are registered every year.

Those names are hardly ever used for girls, so it's unlikely that you have taught all of them

Eh? They're not 'hardly ever used'. Why would that be made up. I've also taught a female Jamie, Riley, Sydney and Charlie and three of those were in a rural, 'posh' independent school in the South East. The only one I'm missing is Casey and I haven't taught a male or a female one of those. So not at all difficult to imagine that another teacher has taught all five, especially as those kind of unisex names are more popular in some areas and demographics than others - and I don't think private schools in the home counties will be top of that list! Even if a name is relatively rare, the chances of coming across it during a teaching career are pretty high.

I think Noa is pretty but would spell it without the h for a girl, definitely.

Noel makes me think of Edmonds and Fielding, neither good associations.

No, definitely Noah. It's very popular here. Names vary in popularity in regions depending on the ethnic mix Rafael seems popular to - and like Noah, is heard as RAFA-YELL! at some young tearaway.