Nouhad Haddad was born on November 20, 1934 in Lebanon into an Assyrian and Maronite Christian family.[10][11][12] Her father was born in Mardin, Turkey. The family later moved into a home in a cobblestone alley called Zuqaq el Blatt in Beirut. Living in a single room of a typical Lebanese stone house facing Beirut's Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate school, they shared a kitchen with the neighbours. Her father Wadīʿ was a Lebanese of the Syriac Orthodox faith,[13][14] and worked as a typesetter in a print shop.[15]By the age of ten, Nouhad was already known at school for her unusual singing voice. She would sing regularly during school shows and on holidays. This was how she came to the attention of Mohammed Flayfel, a well known musician and a teacher at the Lebanese Conservatory, who happened to attend one of the school's shows in February 1950. Impressed by her voice and performance, he advised her to enrol in the conservatory, which she did. At first, Nouhad's conservative father was reluctant to send her to the conservatory; however, he eventually allowed her to go on condition that her brother accompany her. That having been said, Nouhad's family as a whole encouraged her in her musical career.