Elizabeth
Meaning of Elizabeth
Elizabeth derives from the Hebrew name Elisheva, usually translated as “God is my oath” or “my God is abundance.” It reached English through the Greek and Latin forms of the name, and in the New Testament it belongs to the mother of John the Baptist. Dictionaries agree on the Hebrew source; only the wording of the meaning varies slightly between them.
English speakers say it ih-LIZ-uh-beth, with the stress on the second syllable.
Two English queens carry the name. Elizabeth I reigned from 1558 to 1603, the last and longest-reigning Tudor, and gave her name to the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth II reigned from 1952 to 2022, and her 70 years on the throne were the longest of any British monarch. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who led the American women’s suffrage movement and helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention, is another well-known bearer.
In the United States the name has appeared in the top 30 in every year since 1880. It ranked 3rd in 1887, and its highest number of births came in 1990, when 20,750 girls were named Elizabeth. The name has eased since then, ranking 17th in 2025 with 6,760 births.
Pronunciation
Spanish
- Pronunced as eh-lee-SAH-beht (/e.li.ˈsaβeθ/)
Italian
- Pronunced as eh-lee-ZAH-beht-tah (/e.li.ˈdza.be.tta/)
English (Traditional)
- Pronunced as ih-LIZ-uh-beth (/ɪˈlɪz.ə.bəθ/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Elizabeth
| Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 1952 to 2022, with a 70 year reign that was the longest of any British monarch and the longest by any queen regnant. |
| Elizabeth David was a pioneering mid 20th century British food writer who revived home cooking with influential books and articles on European and traditional British cuisine. |
| Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a pioneering American writer and activist who led the women’s rights movement, spearheaded the Seneca Falls Convention and its Declaration of Sentiments, championed women’s suffrage, and supported abolition. |
| Elizabeth Warren is a progressive Democratic senator from Massachusetts since 2013, a former law professor focused on consumer protection and economic fairness, and a 2020 presidential candidate who finished third. |
| Elizabeth I ruled England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603 as the last and longest reigning Tudor, giving her name to the Elizabethan era. |
| Elizabeth Taylor was an English and American actress who rose from a 1940s child star to a 1950s Hollywood icon, became the highest paid movie star of the 1960s, and was later ranked seventh by the American Film Institute among female screen legends. |
| Elizabeth Holmes is an American biotech founder once hailed as a self-made billionaire whose company Theranos collapsed amid false blood testing claims that led to her fraud conviction. |
| Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to earn a medical degree and the first on the UK medical register, was a reformer who advanced women in medicine and is honored by the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal. |
| Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia - Elizabeth Stuart, Electress of the Palatinate and briefly Queen of Bohemia as wife of Frederick V, was chosen amid unrest that sparked the Thirty Years War and is remembered as the Winter Queen after a one winter reign. |
| Elizabeth Olsen is an American actress best known for playing Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, earning Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for WandaVision. |
| Elizabeth Catlett was an American and Mexican sculptor and printmaker who portrayed the Black American experience, especially women, and after moving to Mexico in 1946 taught with the Taller de Grafica Popular and led sculpture at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas. |
| Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton - Elizabeth Hamilton was an American socialite and philanthropist who championed her husband Alexander Hamilton's work in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. |
| Elizabeth Gaskell was an English novelist and biographer whose books, including Cranford, North and South, and Wives and Daughters, probed Victorian society, and whose Life of Charlotte Bronte helped secure the Bronte family legacy. |
| Elizabeth Fry, known as Betsy, was an English Quaker reformer and philanthropist who led landmark prison reforms, including the 1823 Gaols Act, to improve conditions and protect female inmates. |
