Short form of Esther, from Persian 'stara' meaning star, or possibly from Ishtar.
Esta is most commonly understood as a variant of Esther, one of the great names of the Hebrew Bible, though the etymology of Esther itself remains beautifully contested: some scholars trace it to the Hebrew "stara" or the Persian "setareh," both meaning star; others connect it to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. The Book of Esther tells of a Jewish woman who becomes Queen of Persia under Ahasuerus and saves her people from persecution through courage and diplomacy — a narrative of survival through intelligence that has resonated for millennia.
Esta also brushes against Estella and Estelle, the constellation of star-names that sparkled through nineteenth-century naming fashion, partly propelled by Charles Dickens's cold, glittering Estella in "Great Expectations" (1861). As a standalone form, Esta carries the clipped efficiency beloved by immigrants and their children in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when names were often shortened at Ellis Island or simply reshaped to sit more comfortably in an English-speaking world. It appears frequently in Ashkenazi Jewish communities of that era as families preserved the sound of an older name while smoothing its edges.
The name reached its American peak in the decades straddling 1900 and has since rested quietly in the category of warmly antique feminine names — neither dusty enough to feel merely historical nor common enough to feel expected. It offers the same celestial root as Stella while landing with a softer, more intimate touch.