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Summary
- No one named Zoey appears in the Bible. Zoey is a modern English variant of Zoe, the Greek word for “life.”
- The Greek word zōē occurs about 135 times in the New Testament, as in “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
- In the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, Adam names his wife Zoe in Genesis 3:20, where English Bibles translating the Hebrew read Eve.
- Zoya is the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Bulgarian form; the Hebrew names with the same meaning are Chaim and Chaya.
- Zoey entered the US top 1,000 in 1995 and peaked at 20th in 2012.
- Saints named Zoe include Zoe of Rome, commemorated on 5 July, and Zoe of Attalia, a second-century martyr commemorated by the Orthodox Church on 2 May.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Behind the Name, “Zoe,” “Zoey,” “Zoya,” “Chaim,” “Chaya” and “Eve,” with United States popularity figures from Social Security Administration data. https://www.behindthename.com/name/zoe
- Strong’s Greek 2222, zōē, with the NAS Exhaustive Concordance count, Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/greek/2222.htm
- Septuagint, Genesis 3:20 and 4:1, Greek text and Lancelot Brenton’s English translation, Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/sep/genesis/3.htm
- “Zoe of Rome,” Wikipedia, and CatholicSaints.Info, “Saint Zoe of Rome,” citing the Roman Martyrology for 5 July. https://catholicsaints.info/saint-zoe-of-rome/
- Orthodox Church in America, “Martyr Hesperus with his wife and sons at Attalia,” 2 May. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2016/05/02/101273-martyr-hesperus-with-his-wife-and-sons-at-attalia
- Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version, with its note on the name Eve: Genesis 3:20; John 1:4; 10:10; 11:25; 14:6. Reference: John 3:16.
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