According to Genesis, eight people entered Noah’s Ark before the flood. Genesis names Noah, his wife, his three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and the three sons’ wives as those who entered the vessel. The text does not provide the women’s personal names.
The number eight is also echoed in the New Testament. First Peter refers to “eight souls” being saved through water, using the flood story as an image of salvation. This makes eight the standard biblical answer when a question asks how many human beings were aboard.
Some retellings give larger numbers because they include animals, later legendary passengers, or people imagined as helping construct the Ark. Those additions are not part of the account in Genesis. The biblical narrative presents Noah’s immediate family as the complete human group preserved from the flood.
The eight people are distinct from the animals, whose numbers vary in the text according to whether they are classified as clean or unclean.