The names of God — and the crisis each one was given in.
Almost none of these were revealed in a classroom. They were spoken on a mountain, in a winepress, at bitter water, in a desert by a runaway slave. Start from what you're carrying today.
Which name do you need today?
Almost every name below was given in a specific crisis. Start from what you're carrying, or browse them all.
Start from what you need
Yahweh
Exodus 3:14“I AM WHO I AM”
Given at the burning bush, when Moses asked what to tell the Israelites
The personal name of God, and the strangest answer to a question in Scripture. Moses asks for a name and receives a verb — I AM — which refuses to place God in a category alongside other gods. It's the name behind the small capitals 'LORD' in most English Bibles, appearing around 6,800 times. Jewish reverence for it grew so great that readers substituted Adonai aloud, which is why its original pronunciation is uncertain.
Hebrew transliterations vary between traditions — you'll see Jireh and Yireh, Ro'i and Rohi, Sabaoth and Tzva'ot. They're the same words rendered by different conventions, not different names.
Start here
Every name in this list was given in an emergency
The names of God in Scripture are not a theological taxonomy someone compiled later. They are almost all field reports — names given at the moment a particular attribute of God became the only thing that mattered. Abraham names Yahweh Yireh standing on a mountain with a knife in his hand and a ram caught in a thicket behind him. Gideon names Yahweh Shalom while hiding in a winepress from an occupying army. Hagar names El Roi as a pregnant runaway slave who had every reason to believe nobody was looking.
That pattern is the most useful thing about them, and it's why this page is built as a tool rather than a list. If you come to it carrying something specific — a provision you can't see a route to, a diagnosis, shame, a fight you can't win, the feeling that God has gone quiet — there is very likely a name that was first spoken by someone in exactly that position. Start from the need and the name finds you.
One detail worth noticing before you begin. The single name in Scripture given to God by a human being rather than revealed by God himself comes from Hagar — an Egyptian slave, female, foreign, pregnant, and running away, which is about as far from religious authority as a person could be in that world. Her name for God is 'the one who sees me.' Of all the naming in the Bible, that one was left to her.
Three things worth knowing
Before you read the list
Why 'the LORD' is in small capitals
When your Bible prints LORD in small capitals, it's standing in for the four Hebrew letters YHWH — the personal name given at the burning bush. It appears around 6,800 times, and English translations follow the ancient Jewish practice of substituting a title out of reverence.
Jehovah and Yahweh are the same name
'Jehovah' is a hybrid produced by combining YHWH's consonants with the vowels of Adonai — a medieval reading convention rather than an ancient pronunciation. Most scholars now render it Yahweh. Nothing theological hangs on which you use.
The compound names are place-names
Yahweh Yireh, Nissi and Shalom are, in the text, names given to altars and places rather than titles for God in the abstract. That's not a technicality — it means each one is anchored to something that actually happened at a specific spot.
The one to end on
The name that changed what all the others are for
Every name on this page is Hebrew except one. In Gethsemane, on the worst night of his life, Jesus prays using an Aramaic word — Abba — and Paul twice tells Gentile churches that they cry the same thing, keeping the word untranslated as though it mattered that they hear it in the original.
It isn't quite 'daddy', despite how often that's said — it was used by adult children as well as small ones, and carries respect as much as intimacy. But it is unmistakably family language, and its arrival is the hinge of the whole subject. The names given at Marah and Peniel and the winepress tell you what God is like. Abba tells you what you are to him.
That reframes the rest rather than replacing it. Yahweh Yireh is still the God who provides, El Roi is still the God who sees, Yahweh Rapha still the God who heals — but Romans 8 puts the whole list inside a family, where the one providing, seeing and healing is a Father rather than a power you're negotiating with. Which is why, of all the names available, that's the one Jesus taught his followers to open a prayer with.
Now use the name you needed.
Bring the actual situation and pray it back to God using the name that fits it. It stays private; create an account to keep going.
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Questions people ask
About the names of god
What are the names of God in the Bible?+
The main ones are Yahweh (the personal name from Exodus 3), Elohim (God as Creator), Adonai (Lord, Master), and El Shaddai (God Almighty), plus compound names given at specific events: Yahweh Yireh (provides), Rapha (heals), Nissi (banner), Shalom (peace), Ro'i (shepherd), Tsidkenu (our righteousness), Shammah (is there), Sabaoth (of armies), El Roi (sees me), El Olam (everlasting), and the Aramaic Abba (Father).
What does Yahweh mean?+
It comes from the answer God gives Moses at the burning bush — 'I AM WHO I AM' — and is connected to the Hebrew verb 'to be'. It's a name that refuses to define God by comparison with anything else. Reverence for it grew so strong that readers substituted Adonai aloud, which is why the original pronunciation is genuinely uncertain today.
Is Jehovah the same as Yahweh?+
Yes. 'Jehovah' is a hybrid form created by combining the consonants YHWH with the vowel points of Adonai — a reading aid that later got read as a word in its own right. It's a medieval artefact rather than an ancient pronunciation, and most modern scholarship uses Yahweh. Nothing theological depends on the choice.
What does El Roi mean, and who said it?+
'The God who sees me' — and it's the only name for God in the Bible given by a human being rather than revealed by God. It comes from Hagar in Genesis 16: an Egyptian slave, pregnant and running away into the desert, with no standing and nobody looking for her. Her line is 'you are a God who sees.'
What is Jehovah Jireh?+
Yahweh Yireh, 'the LORD will provide', named by Abraham in Genesis 22:14 after the ram appeared in the thicket on Mount Moriah. The tense matters: he names the place for something that had just happened to him, in a form that leaves it open for everyone afterwards — and the provision arrived at the last possible moment, which is the part people usually leave out.
Why does the Bible have so many names for God?+
Because each was given at a point where one particular thing about God became the only thing that mattered. They're not synonyms competing to be the correct title — they're a record of what people discovered about him at Marah, at Peniel, in a winepress, in a desert, in exile. Which is why starting from what you're currently carrying is a reasonable way in.
You already know which one you needed.
Create an account to pray it through, keep the name that met you today, and find the passage it came from when you need it again.
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