What is the name of the most recent common female ancestor of all living humans?

The most recent common female-line ancestor of all living humans is known as Mitochondrial Eve. She is defined as the woman from whom every living person inherited mitochondrial DNA through an unbroken chain of mothers.

Mitochondria are cellular structures that contain their own DNA, and mitochondrial DNA is usually passed from a mother to all her children. By tracing variation in this DNA, researchers can reconstruct maternal lineages and estimate where they converge on one ancestral woman. Genetic studies generally place Mitochondrial Eve in Africa, although her exact identity, location, and age cannot be known from surviving evidence.

Mitochondrial Eve was not the first woman, the only woman alive in her time, or the sole female ancestor of modern humans. Other women living then may have descendants today, but their strictly maternal lines eventually ended. She is also not the most recent common ancestor of all human DNA; that broader genealogical ancestor is a different concept.

Her male-line counterpart is called Y-chromosomal Adam. The two need not have lived at the same time, because mitochondrial and Y-chromosome inheritance follow different family lines and are reshaped as ancestral lineages disappear.