In the Babylonian flood story known as the Atrahasis Epic, the flood survivor’s name was Atrahasis. His name can be translated approximately as “exceedingly wise,” reflecting the hero’s defining quality in the poem.
The Atrahasis Epic is preserved on Old Babylonian clay tablets from the second millennium BCE, although the surviving text is damaged and comes from different manuscript traditions. In the story, the god Enki, also called Ea, warns Atrahasis about a divine decision to send a devastating flood and gives him instructions for surviving it.
Atrahasis resembles other Mesopotamian flood heroes, especially Ziusudra and Utnapishtim. These figures belong to related but distinct literary traditions. The name Atrahasis should therefore be used for the hero of the Atrahasis Epic, not as a substitute for Noah or for Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh.