Ava

Ava has more than one possible source. It may be a short form of medieval Germanic names beginning with the element avi, whose meaning is uncertain, or a variant of Eve, from the Hebrew Chavah, meaning life. Saint Ava, a ninth-century Frankish abbess said to be related to the Carolingian kings, carried an early form of the name. The German poet Frau Ava, who wrote religious verse in the eleventh century, is regarded as the earliest named woman writer in the German language. In the twentieth century the American actress Ava Gardner, star of The Barefoot Contessa and Mogambo, brought the name before a wide audience.