Current researches mainly focus on the investigations of the valve plate utilizing pressure relief grooves. However, air-release and cavitation can occur near the grooves. The valve plate utilizing damping holes show excellent performance in avoiding air-release and cavitation. This study aims to reduce the noise emitted from an axial piston pump using a novel valve plate utilizing damping holes. A dynamic pump model is developed, in which the fluid properties are carefully modeled to capture the phenomena of air release and cavitation. The causes of different noise sources are investigated using the model. A comprehensive parametric analysis is conducted to enhance the understanding of the effects of the valve plate parameters on the noise sources. A multi-objective genetic algorithm optimization method is proposed to optimize the parameters of valve plate. The amplitudes of the swash plate moment and flow rates in the inlet and outlet ports are defined as the objective functions. The pressure overshoot and undershoot in the piston chamber are limited by properly constraining the highest and lowest pressure values. A comparison of the various noise sources between the original and optimized designs over a wide range of pressure levels shows that the noise sources are reduced at high pressures. The results of the sound pressure level measurements show that the optimized valve plate reduces the noise level by 1.6 dB(A) at the rated working condition. The proposed method is effective in reducing the noise of axial piston pumps and contributes to the development of quieter axial piston machines.