Is Adalyn in the Bible? No, It Is a Modern Spelling of Adeline

No one named Adalyn appears in the Bible. Adalyn is a modern spelling of Adeline, a French name built on the Germanic word adal, “noble.” It has no Hebrew or biblical meaning, and it first appeared among the 1,000 most common names for American girls in 2007.

Is Adalyn in the Bible?

The name does not occur in the Hebrew or Greek text of the Bible, and no translation uses it. Neither does Adeline, the older name it respells. Both come from the Germanic languages of early medieval Europe rather than from Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, and the spelling Adalyn has been in common use only since the 2000s.

What does Adalyn mean?

Adalyn means “noble.” Behind the Name describes it as a variant of Adeline made with the popular ending -lyn. Adeline is the French and English form of Adelina, a Germanic name formed from adal, “noble,” the root that survives in the German words Adel, “nobility,” and edel, “noble.” The same element begins Adelaide, Adela and Adele.

The meaning “noble and tender,” often given for Adalyn, belongs to a different name. Adallinda joined adal to lind, “soft, tender.” Adeline and Adalyn contain only adal.

Adalyn is one of several spellings of the same name. Behind the Name lists Adaline, Adalynn, Addilyn, Adelyn and Adelynn as variants, and Addie and Addy as short forms. In Spanish the name is Adelina.

What does Adalyn mean in the Bible?

Adalyn has no meaning in the Bible, because the name is not there. The idea it carries is. The Greek of the New Testament has a word for “noble,” eugenēs, literally “well-born,” and uses it three times. In one of Jesus’ parables, “a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return” (Luke 19:12). Paul reminded the believers in Corinth that when God called them, “not many were of noble birth” (1 Corinthians 1:26).

In Acts it describes conduct, in the account of the Jews of Berea: “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

How popular is Adalyn?

Adalyn entered the list of the 1,000 most common names for girls in the United States in 2007, at 880th. It climbed quickly, to 132nd in 2015, and has eased since, to 260th in 2025. Adalynn, with two n’s, joined the list a year later and went higher, reaching 108th in 2018; it ranked 184th in 2025.

Adeline itself is much older. It ranked between about 160th and 210th from 1880 to the mid-1920s, dropped out of the top 1,000 after 1952, returned in 1999 and ranked 59th in 2025.

Saint Adeline

No saint is named Adalyn, but the Church honors a Saint Adeline. She was the sister of Saint Vitalis of Savigny, a Norman priest and preacher who founded the abbey of Savigny. Between 1105 and 1120 Vitalis founded a convent of nuns at Mortain, in Normandy, with Adeline as its first abbess, and the house became known as the Abbaye Blanche, the White Abbey. She died around 1125. The diocese of Coutances keeps her feast on 20 October.

Related reading

• Adelyn Is Not in the Bible — but Scripture Cares Where a Name Is Written
• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names