A form related to Elihu, from Hebrew, meaning He is my God.
Eliu is a variant of Elihu, one of the older and more theologically freighted names of the Hebrew Bible. The name is composed of 'eli' (my God) and 'hu' (He is), yielding 'He is my God' — a declaration of faith compressed into two syllables. Elihu appears in the Book of Job as the youngest of Job's companions, the one who waits patiently while his elders speak and then delivers a passionate speech insisting that God communicates with humanity through dreams, visions, and suffering itself.
His intervention is among the most dramatically ambiguous in all of scripture — scholars have debated for millennia whether Elihu speaks wisdom or presumption. The name also appears in the genealogies of 1 Samuel as an ancestor of the prophet Samuel, and was borne by Elihu Root (1845–1937), the American statesman and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as Secretary of War and Secretary of State. The variant Eliu softens the name's weight slightly — dropping the final 'h' gives it a more open, vowel-forward ending that feels natural in Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan-speaking regions, where the name circulates as a genuine given name rather than an archaic relic.
In Latin American communities, Eliu carries a warmth that purely biblical names sometimes lack — it is short, musical, unmistakably meaningful, yet light enough for everyday use. It has seen modest but steady use in Mexico and Central America, appreciated by families who want a name that is both devout and genuinely uncommon.