I. Name
Aya was the name of a syncretistic deity in Ugarit, equated with the Mesopotamian deities Aya and Ea. The name is of unknown etymology. Roberts (1972: 20–21) argued for a original spelling ʾay(y)a deriving from an original root *ḥyy “to live” and related it to the adjective ḥayy(um) “alive” in Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic. In the OT Aya occurs several times (e. g. Gen. 36.24; 2 Sam. 3.7; 1 Chr. 7.28) as a proper name. It is regarded by some authors as a hypocoristic form to be connected with the Ugaritic deity.