And [Lamech] named him Noah, saying, “This one will give us comfort from our work and from the hard labor of our hands caused by the ground which the Lord has cursed.
Genesis 5:29 (NASB)
The last generation listed before Noah is born is through Lamech, who says this perplexing thing about comfort from the toil from the cursed ground.
If you follow the timing of the births and deaths of the line from Adam until Lamech, you'll see that Adam has only recently died, so perhaps the whole world sees that the consequenced laid out in Genesis 2 and 3 has come to fruition. Maybe the world weeps. Death is reality.
So Lamech names his son "Noah," which means comfort, and it points to a future where God provides a way out of death, symbolized by a certain boat that rises above the all-consuming flood.