Duhkha as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Duhkha

What is the meaning of the name Duhkha ?

The baby name Duhkha is a Unisex name , 2 syllables long and is pronounced IPA: /d̪uk.kʰə/; approx. 'DOOK-khuh' or 'DUKH-kha'.

Duhkha is Sanskrit in Origin.

Duhkha (Sanskrit: duḥkha; Pali: dukkha) combines duḥ- “bad, difficult” + kha “space, hole,” often glossed as a “bad axle‑hole.” It denotes suffering, pain, hardship, and in Buddhist contexts the broader sense of unsatisfactoriness or stress that pervades conditioned life. The word is central to the Four Noble Truths and appears in early Upaniṣads and Jain scriptures, making it a pan‑Indic concept with deep historical reach.

As a personal name, Duhkha is very rare and unisex, sometimes chosen by contemplative families to signify compassionate awareness of life’s challenges and the transformation of suffering into wisdom. Variant spellings include Dukha and the Pali form Dukkha; related modern Indo‑Aryan cognates include Hindi Dukh and Bengali Dukkho. A meaningful counterpart is Sukha (“ease, happiness”). While the semantic load is weighty, the name’s stark honesty and classical pedigree give it a distinctive, quietly ascetic character.

⚙ Duhkha is an extremely rare name. Across our dataset of national birth registries and international name records, Duhkha appears only 1 time in total — found in 1 country. If you're considering it, you'd be giving your child a name almost nobody else has.