Hebrew feminine name meaning 'brightness,' 'radiance,' or 'wolf,' a feminine form of Ze'ev.
Zeeva is a luminous variant of the Hebrew name Ziva (זִיו), rooted in the ancient Hebrew word for "brightness," "radiance," or "splendor." The root appears in the Talmud and early rabbinic literature, where ziw describes the divine glow said to emanate from the faces of holy figures — a radiance that mortals glimpse only in transcendent moments. As a given name, it entered modern usage through the revival of Hebrew as a living language in the early twentieth century, gaining particular popularity in Israel where it carries both spiritual and nationalistic resonance.
In contemporary Western consciousness, the name received notable exposure through the character Ziva David on the long-running American drama NCIS — a fierce, multilingual Israeli intelligence officer whose complexity challenged the usual TV heroine archetype. The spelling Zeeva softens the name slightly for English-speaking palates while preserving the Hebrew pronunciation intact. It belongs to a small, elegant family of names — alongside Zara, Zosia, and Zella — that begin with the rare English letter Z, lending them immediate distinctiveness.
Zeeva has grown steadily in favor among parents seeking names that feel simultaneously ancient and modern, rooted in a living cultural tradition yet uncommon enough to stand apart. Its two crisp syllables carry warmth without heaviness, and its meaning — to be radiant, to shine — makes it one of those rare names whose definition feels like a gift in itself.