A biblical Hebrew name meaning God is my oath.
Elisheba is the original Hebrew form of one of history's most widely used names — Elizabeth — and wearing it is like holding the coin before it was polished into currency. The name appears in the Book of Exodus as the name of Aaron's wife, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, a woman from the tribe of Judah who married into the priestly lineage that would shape Israelite religious practice. Her name, Elisheba, means "my God is an oath" or "my God is abundance" — the "el" prefix denoting God, the "sheba" root connecting to the word for seven (a number of completeness) or for oath.
From Elisheba, the name passed into Greek as Elisabet, then into Latin as Elisabeth, and from there into virtually every European language: Elizabeth, Isabel, Isabelle, Elspeth, Elsa, Lisa, Bess. The name of queens — Elizabeth I and II of England, Elizabeth of Hungary (canonized as a saint), the Empress Elisabeth of Austria — and of literature, from Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice to Elizabeth March in Little Women. Elisheba is the trunk from which all those branches grew, the name before it became a dynasty.
In recent decades, as parents have sought to return to original, pre-Hellenized forms of ancient names — choosing Miriam over Mary, Yosef over Joseph, Rebekah over Rebecca — Elisheba has begun to circulate again among families drawn to biblical authenticity, whether Jewish, evangelical Christian, or simply historically minded. It carries an archaic gravity that Elizabeth cannot quite match, the sound of a name that has not yet been smoothed by centuries of repetition. To give a daughter this name is to give her the original, unmediated thing.