Azadeh

Azadeh comes from the Persian azad, meaning free, and in older usage named a noble, high-born woman, the sort of character who rides beside a king in the Shahnameh. In modern Iran it remains a favored feminine name, pronounced ah-zah-DEH, with the final syllable landing lightly. Its sibling word azadi, freedom, is a political cry across Persian-speaking countries, which lends the name a quiet second resonance. Azadeh is graceful on a page and spacious on the tongue, three soft syllables carrying both courtly past and contemporary feeling. A name for a woman who is precisely and unarguably her own.