Eli as a name has two different meanings, both originating in the Hebrew Bible.
Eli can be used for males (Hebrew tradition) or females (Scandinavian tradition). Hebrew origin, from Biblical עֵלִי "ascent", spelled with the Hebrew letter ayin in the beginning, the name of Eli, the high priest in the Books of Samuel. It is identical to the Arabic name Ali (علي).[1]
It came to be used as a given name among the Puritans in the 17th century and was by them taken to the American colonies.[2]
Eli may alternatively be an unrelated abbreviation of Hebrew names[3] such as
Elijah, Elias, Elisha, Eliezer, Elimelech, etc., all containing the element אלי, meaning "my God" and spelled with the Hebrew letter aleph in the beginning. El is the name of a Semitic deity that is used in the Bible as a name for the god of the Israelites, and -i is the suffix for the genitive form ("mine").
In the United States, the popularity of the given name Eli was hovering around rank 200 in the 1880s. It declined gradually during the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries, falling below rank 700 in 1964.
In a significant revival of the name's popularity in the early 1970s, it bounced back above rank 400 in 1976. Its popularity has continued to grow since then, entering the top 100 masculine given names in the 2000s, and ranking as the 64th most popular boys' name as of 2021.[4]
Eli is also a short form of names Elisabet, Elin, and Helena in Scandinavia,[5][6] unrelated to the masculine Hebrew name Eli.[7] The two names differ in pronunciation as well.
People with the name
Eli Abaev (born 1998), American-Israeli basketball player
^Withycombe, E. G. (1976) [1944]. The Concise Dictionary of English Christian Names (3rd ed.). London: Omega Books. ISBN1-85007-059-8.
^Royal Ralph Hinman,A catalogue of the names of the first Puritan settlers of the colony of Connecticut, 1846, p. 169 mentions one Eli Bush, born 1741.
David Pickering, The Penguin Book of Baby Names, Penguin, 2009. See also babynamespedia.com.
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