The name Leah is believed to come from the Hebrew name Le'a and Hebrew word la'a, meaning "weary" or "grieved." Other theories suggest that it's derived from the Akkadian word littu, meaning "cow," the Hawaiian word lei, meaning "flowers," or the Old English word leah, meaning "meadow" or "clearing." In the Bible, Leah was the first wife of Jacob and the mother of six of his sons and his only daughter, Dinah. It has appeared in the Social Security Administration's top 1,000 for girl names every year since 1900, but didn't crack the top-200 until 1967. It has now been a top-100 girl's name every year since 1979, with the exception of 1994-95 and 1997-99, and is the middle name actor James Van Der Beek gave his daughter Annabel Leah, born in 2014.
