Charissa is from Greek charis, meaning 'grace,' and also recalls the Charites of mythology.
Charissa flows from the Greek "charis," meaning grace, beauty, and divine favor — the same root that gives English the word "charisma" and the theological concept of "grace" in Christian tradition. The Charites (Graces) of Greek mythology — Aglaea, Euphrosyne, and Thalia — personified elegance, mirth, and flowering beauty, and the name Charissa inherits this luminous pedigree. It is, in essence, a name that means grace made personal.
The name's most celebrated early literary appearance comes in Edmund Spenser's monumental allegorical poem The Faerie Queene (1590), where Charissa appears as a figure of pure Christian charity — a nursing mother surrounded by children, radiating selfless love. Spenser's Charissa is one of the three theological virtues personified as sisters, and her portrait is among the poem's warmest passages. This literary grounding gave the name a gentle moral gravity in the English-speaking world.
Charissa experienced its most visible period of use in the mid-to-late 20th century, particularly in the United States, where elaborated feminine names with the "-issa" or "-rissa" suffix enjoyed broad popularity. It sits in a family with Carissa, Clarissa, and Marissa, each built on similar melodic architecture. The name's combination of classical roots, literary heritage, and soft phonetics gives it an enduring, understated elegance that resists dating to any single decade.