Entry № 1065 · Germanic origin

Ida Ida — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ EYE-dah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Germanic
Meaning
"Industrious (Ida B. Wells, pioneering Black journalist)"
Syllables
2
Rank · US 2025
№ 0
First recorded
Medieval (Germanic)

A name that means "industrious (ida b. wells, pioneering black journalist)".

Ida is from the Old Germanic id ("work, labor"). **Ida B. Wells (1862-1931)** — born enslaved in Mississippi — became the **pioneering Black American journalist whose meticulous documentation of lynching across the South (*Southern Horrors*, 1892; *The Red Record*, 1895) made it impossible for white America to deny**. **Co-founder of the NAACP** (1909). **Posthumous Pulitzer Prize for journalism (2020)** — "for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching."

Subject of Mia Bay's *To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells* (2009).

Industrious. Pioneering Black journalist whose anti-lynching reporting earned a posthumous 2020 Pulitzer.

The name in its native script.

Ida
Transliteration
Ida
Pronunciation
/ ˈaɪ.də /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Ida stands.

Current rank · 2025
№ 0 in the U.S.
All-time peak
№ 0 in 0
Babies named Ida · last year
87 in the U.S.
First entered SSA top-1000
0
Rank, 1995–2025 Lower = more popular
№25 №75 №150 №250 1995 2005 2015 2020 2025 PEAK · — NOW · —

Idas before her.

Real people
Ida B. Wells
Pioneering Black American journalist.
1862 – 1931
Ida Tarbell
American muckraking journalist.
1857 – 1944
In fiction
Ida
Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida.
2013 film

Names connected to Ida.

The number behind Ida.

9

The Humanitarian

Ida reduces to nine — the number of pioneering Black journalist.

Why families chose this name.

"Pulitzer for Wells. Three letters. Ida."
Eleanor · Mother of one · Holly Springs