Gal Gadot was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and raised in its neighboring city of Rosh HaAyin. In Hebrew, her first name means "wave" and her surname means "riverbanks". Her parents are Irit (née Weiss), a physical education teacher, and Michael Gadot, an engineer. Her parents Hebraized their surname from "Greenstein" to "Gadot" prior to her birth. Her father is a sixth-generation Sabra. Her maternal grandparents were born in 20th century Europe; her grandfather, who was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp, survived the Holocaust, and her grandmother managed to escape before the Nazi invasion. She has stated that she was brought up in a "very Jewish, Israeli family environment". Gadot is of Ashkenazi Jewish (Polish-Jewish, Austrian-Jewish, German-Jewish, and Czech-Jewish) descent. She has a younger sister, Dana Gadot.