Ananda is one of the most celebrated and historically significant Buddhist baby names, meaning joy, bliss, and the happiness that arises from a pure and liberated mind. In Buddhist tradition, Ananda was the name of one of the most devoted and closest disciples of Gautama Buddha — described as his personal attendant, cousin, and one of the primary arhants of early Buddhism. Ananda was renowned for his extraordinary memory, which allowed him to remember and transmit all of the Buddha’s teachings to the First Buddhist Council after the Buddha’s Parinirvana. His dedication to preserving the Dhamma earned him the title Dhammabhandagarika — the treasurer of the Dhamma. In Buddhist philosophy, Ananda — bliss — is also one of the qualities that arises in a practitioner as meditation deepens and the mind becomes clearer and more still. A child named Ananda carries both the legacy of this most devoted of disciples and the aspiration of the inner bliss that is the fruit of genuine spiritual practice.