Eliza
Feminine · “my God is an oath”
Eliza is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 70,569 girls against 202 boys since 1880.
Eliza began as a trimmed-down Elizabeth and then quietly refused to go back — by the eighteenth century it was a name in its own right, on birth registers and title pages alike. Eliza Acton wrote the first modern English cookbook under it in the 1840s, and Bernard Shaw gave it to the flower girl of Pygmalion, whose lessons in speech became My Fair Lady. Three syllables, all vowel-forward, and it has never once needed spelling out.
How old is the name Eliza?
Eliza was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Eliza alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 53,500 people named Eliza are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Eliza most popular?
Eliza peaked in 1880, reaching #85 nationally. Today it ranks #115, 30 places below that high. See the whole 1880 chart.
Where it comes from
From Elisheva to Eliza
The story of Eliza
Elisheva belongs to the Hebrew Bible, where she is the wife of Aaron; the Greek translators rendered her name Elisabet, and through Latin it reached medieval Europe as Elizabeth. English speakers began clipping it early and often, and Eliza was one of the clippings that stuck, standing alone on parish records from the seventeenth century onward and flourishing in the eighteenth and nineteenth. It traveled with English wherever English went, and it was borrowed outright into Polish and Hungarian, where Eliza is spelled exactly the same way. It has stayed in continuous use in Britain and the United States ever since, never disappearing and never crowding out its longer parent.
Meaning
my God is an oath — Eliza is a short form of Elizabeth
The root is Hebrew Elisheva. A second reading of the same elements gives "God is abundance", from the sense of fullness or satisfaction; the oath reading is the one usually given.
Cultural footprint
Eliza Dushku (b. 1980) — Buffy's Faith
Eliza Acton (b. 1799) — Poet who wrote the first modern cookbook
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Elisheva
- Elisabet
- Elizabeth
- Eliza
Related forms: Eliza · Eliza · Elisa · Elisa · Élise · Yelizaveta
Pronouncing Eliza
ee-LY-zuh
Stress on the middle syllable, which rhymes with "eye". In Polish and Hungarian the same spelling is said eh-LEE-zah, so a family with roots in either may use that reading.
Nicknames for Eliza
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 20192,454 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #85reached in 1880
- Change vs 2022
- +1.0%2,370 in 2025, from 2,347
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Eliza in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Eliza in Polish — same name
- Eliza in Hungarian — same name
- Elisa in Italian — related form
- Elisa in Spanish — related form
- Élise in French — related form
- Yelizaveta in Russian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, New York. International figures from Office for National Statistics. Sources
Elizas among us
people named Eliza are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 678 born in 2025 was named Eliza
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Eliza
- #115
- Eliza on the 2025 chart
- #93
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Eliza went to 2,370 girls in 2025, but Elisa, Elyza and Elizah are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 3,154, which makes it the 93rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 22 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 510 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 678 for Eliza itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Eliza peaked long ago yet still holds steady — names that survive their own wave usually settle into quiet, durable classics.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Eliza is headed
Eliza should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Eliza beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Eliza in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A spelling nearly everyone can write down on first hearing, with no silent letters and no variant to correct.
- Several long-established short forms — Liza, Lizzie, Ellie, Liz — so there is room to grow without changing names.
- In continuous use in English for some four centuries, which puts it outside the reach of any single fashion.
- Familiar in both the United States and England and Wales, so it crosses the Atlantic without explanation.
- Well known but not saturated: recognized instantly, rarely doubled up in one classroom.
- It sits in a crowded family — Elisa, Elise, Eloise, Elsie and Elizabeth all live nearby, and Eliza gets misheard as one of them often enough to be worth expecting.
- Because it started as a short form, some people will assume the full name is Elizabeth and ask, or quietly write it that way on forms.
- ELIZA was also the name of an early MIT chatbot, a piece of trivia that surfaces occasionally in tech conversation and nowhere else.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Eliza
Feminine · #115 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Elizas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 53,500 people named Eliza are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Eliza?
- Eliza is the most-used spelling in US records — 2,370 of the 3,154 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Elisa, Elyza and Elizah.
- How popular is the name Eliza in 2025?
- Eliza ranks #115 among US girl names in 2025, with 2,370 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Eliza?
- About 1 in every 678 US girls born in 2025 was named Eliza — 2,370 in all.
- Will my child share the name Eliza with classmates?
- Eliza will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Eliza
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rose#114 · Raelynn#116 · Alaia#117 · Cora#113 · Brooklyn#118 · Margaret#112 · Catalina#111 · Esther#119
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Eliza? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Eliza and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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