Diminutive of Ebenezer, from Hebrew Even HaEzer meaning 'stone of help,' a biblical memorial name.
Ebbie is a nickname name rooted most directly in Ebenezer, one of the great resonant names of the Hebrew Bible. Ebenezer — 'eben ezer' in Hebrew — means 'stone of help' or 'rock of assistance,' commemorating the moment in the First Book of Samuel when the prophet set up a stone to mark God's help in battle: 'Thus far the LORD has helped us.' The name was carried devotedly by Puritan and Nonconformist communities in England and colonial America, who favored its Old Testament gravity and its sense of divine providence made tangible as rock.
The name's modern resonance was fixed forever by Charles Dickens, who named his miser Ebenezer Scrooge in 'A Christmas Carol' (1843), simultaneously the most famous fictional Ebenezer and the reason the name began its long withdrawal from fashion. Scrooge began as a villain and became the archetype of redemption — which means Ebenezer is also, at its heart, a story about transformation. Ebbie, the affectionate diminutive, largely escaped Scrooge's shadow, functioning as a warm nursery name that softened the biblical stone into something approachable.
It appears in American records through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly in communities of English Dissenting heritage. Today Ebbie reads as a genuine rarity — old-fashioned in the most appealing sense, carrying depth without stuffiness, and the quietly radical suggestion that names associated with bad characters can be reclaimed for good ones.