Elizaveta is the Slavic form of Elizabeth, a Hebrew name meaning "God is my oath."
Elizaveta is the Russian and South Slavic form of Elizabeth, one of the most traveled names in all of Western history. Its ultimate source is the Hebrew Elisheba — meaning either my God is an oath or my God is abundance — which appears in the Book of Exodus as the name of the wife of Aaron, Moses's brother. The name passed through Greek as Elisabet and into Latin ecclesiastical use, becoming Elizabeth in the Western church, Elisabetta in Italian, Isabel in Spanish and Portuguese, Elżbieta in Polish, and Elizaveta in the Cyrillic traditions of Russia and the Balkans.
Each form carries the same ancient promise but wears the dress of its own culture. In Russian imperial history, Elizaveta rings with particular grandeur: Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great, ruled Russia from 1741 to 1762, a reign notable for its patronage of the arts, the founding of Moscow State University, and Russia's participation in the Seven Years' War. Her court was famous for its French-influenced splendor, and she reportedly owned fifteen thousand dresses at her death.
The name she wore remained deeply embedded in Russian aristocratic and then literary culture — Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov all peopled their works with Elizavetas, giving the name a rich novelistic texture. For parents seeking a name that is simultaneously deeply traditional and relatively unfamiliar to English ears, Elizaveta offers extraordinary riches: the universality of Elizabeth, the imperial poetry of the Russian inflection, and the slightly exotic musicality of its five syllables spoken aloud — Eh-lee-ZAH-vye-tah — a name that unfolds like a piece of brocade.