From Hebrew, meaning 'my delight is in her'; a biblical name from the Old Testament.
Hephzibah is one of the most ancient Hebrew names still in circulation, derived from the phrase חֶפְצִי-בָהּ (Cheftzi-bah), meaning "my delight is in her" or "she is my desire." It appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name of King Hezekiah's wife and the mother of the ill-fated King Manasseh of Judah, giving it deep roots in Israelite royal history. The prophet Isaiah also used it as a poetic name for the restored land of Jerusalem, transforming it into a symbol of divine love and redemption for an entire people.
During the Puritan era of the 17th and 18th centuries, Hephzibah enjoyed a surprising surge in popularity in England and New England, as devout Protestant families mined the Old Testament for names that carried spiritual weight. It was a mark of theological seriousness, a parent's declaration of joy in their daughter. The American poet Hephzibah Swan was one notable bearer, and the name endured steadily in religious communities well into the 19th century.
Today Hephzibah is rare in the modern English-speaking world — occasionally shortened to Hepzibah, Hepsie, or simply Effie — but it retains a certain dignified grandeur. Its very unwieldiness has become a kind of charm: parents who choose it are making a deliberate statement, reaching back across millennia to claim a name that vibrates with meaning. In Israel it remains more familiar as Heftzi or Cheftzi, a living thread connecting contemporary life to scripture.