Eli as a name has two different meanings, both originating in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
. '' Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
origin, from Biblical "ascent", spelled with the Hebrew letter ''
ayin'' in the beginning, the name of
Eli, the
high priest in the
Books of Samuel
The Book of Samuel () is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Book of Joshua, Joshua, Book of Judges, Judges, Samuel, and Books of ...
. It is identical to the Arabic name
Ali (علي).
It came to be used as a given name among the
Puritans
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...
in the 17th century and was by them taken to the
American colonies.
Eli may alternatively be an unrelated abbreviation of Hebrew names such as
Elijah,
Elias,
Elisha,
Eliezer
Eliezer () was the name of at least three different individuals in the Hebrew Bible.
Eliezer of Damascus
Eliezer of Damascus () was, according to Targum Jonathan Bereishit, 14:14, the son of Nimrod. As mentioned in Lech-Lecha#Sixth_reading— ...
,
Elimelech, etc., all containing the element , meaning "my God" and spelled with the Hebrew letter ''
aleph
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''ʾālep'' 𐤀, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''ʾālef'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''ʾālap'' � ...
'' in the beginning.
El is the name of a
Semitic deity that is used in the Bible as a name for the god of the
Israelites
Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age.
Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...
, and -i is the
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
for the
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
form ("mine").
In the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, the popularity of the given name ''Eli'' was hovering around rank 200 in the 1880s. It declined gradually during the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries, falling below rank 700 in 1964. In a significant revival of the name's popularity in the early 1970s, it bounced back above rank 400 in 1976. Its popularity has continued to grow since then, entering the top 100 masculine given names in the 2000s, and ranking as the 64th most popular boys' name as of 2021.
Eli is also a short form of names Elisabet, Elin, and Helena in Scandinavia, unrelated to the masculine Hebrew name Eli.
The two names differ in pronunciation as well.
People with the name
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Eli Abaev (born 1998), American-Israeli basketball player
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Eli Abarbanel (; born 1976), Israeli footballer
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Eli Abbott (1869–1943), American football player and football and baseball coach
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Eli Amir ( born 1937), Israeli writer and peace activist
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Eli Arenson (born 1988), Israeli cinematographer
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Eli Bebout (born 1946), Wyoming politician
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Eli Beeding (1928-2013), US Air Force captain and rocket test subject
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Eli Biham (, born 1960), Israeli cryptographer
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Eli M. Black (Elihu) (1921–1975), American businessman
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Eli Whitney Blake (1795–1886), American inventor
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Eli Whitney Blake Jr. (1836–1895), American scientist
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Eli Broad (1933–2021), American billionaire, philanthropist, art collector
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Eli Metcalfe Bruce (1828–1866), philanthropist, financier and politician from Kentucky
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Eli Franklin Burton (1879–1948), Canadian physicist
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Eli Bush (fl. 2000s–2020s), American film and theatre producer
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Eli Cohen (disambiguation), multiple people
*
Eli Dasa (born 1992), Israeli footballer for
Dynamo Moscow and the
Israel national team
*
Eli Dershwitz (born 1995), 2023 World Saber Champion, 2015 Under-20 World Saber Champion, U.S. Olympic saber fencer
*
Eli Erlick (born 1995), American activist
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Eli Giannini (born 1956), female Australian architect and director of MGS Architects in Melbourne
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Eli Gorenstein (born 1952), Israeli actor, voice actor, singer and cellist
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Eli Heckscher (1879–1952), Swedish economist
*
Eli Frank Hollingsworth (1892–1964), justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri
*
Eli Huston (Houston, in some sources; c. 1799–1835), associate justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi
*
Eli Jones Henkle (1825–1893), U.S. Congressman from Maryland
*
Eli Holstein (born 2004), American football player
*
Eli Hurvitz (Elihu, 1932-2011), Israeli industrialist
*
Eli H. Janney (1831–1912), engineer, Confederate soldier
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Eli King (footballer) (born 2002), Welsh footballer
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Eli C. King (fl. 1820s), American politician who was the third mayor of Columbus, Ohio
*
Eli Lancman (1936-2024), Israeli historian
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Eli Langer (born 1967), Canadian artist
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Eli Lilly
Eli Lilly (July 8, 1838 – June 6, 1898) was a Union Army officer, pharmacist, chemist, and businessman who founded Eli Lilly and Company.
Lilly enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War and recruited a company of men to ...
(1838–1898), American soldier, pharmaceutical chemist, and industrialist, founder of Eli Lilly and Company
*
Eli Lilly (industrialist) (1885–1977), American industrialist, grandson of the Colonel
*
Eli Long (1837–1903), General in the Union Army in the American Civil War
*
Eli Manning (Elisha) (born 1981), American football player, 2-time super bowl MVP
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Eli Mohar (1948–2006), Israeli songwriter and columnist
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Eli Morgan (born 1996), American baseball pitcher for the
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. Since , the team ...
*
Elie Munk (1900–1981), German-born French rabbi and rabbinic scholar
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Eli Noam (born 1946), professor at Columbia University
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Eli M. Oboler (1915–1983), librarian, Idaho State University and writer
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Eli Ohana (, born 1964), Israeli football player and coach
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Eli Pemberton (born 1997), American basketball player in the
Israeli Basketball Premier League
Ligat HaAl (, lit., ''Supreme League or Premier League''), or the Israeli Basketball Premier League, is a professional basketball league in Israel and the highest level of basketball in the country. The league's name is abbreviated as either BSL ...
*
Eli "Paperboy" Reed (born 1983), American singer and songwriter
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Eli Thomas Reich (1913–1999), US vice admiral
*
Eli Ricks (born 2001), American football player
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Eli Roth
Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. As a director and producer, he is most closely associated with the horror genre, namely splatter films, having directed the films ''Cabin Fev ...
(born 1972), American film director
*
Eli Salzberger (born 1960), Israeli legal scholar
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Eli Saulsbury (1817–1893), U.S. Senator from Delaware
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Eli Schenkel (born 1992), Canadian Olympic fencer
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Eli Sherbatov (born 1991), Canadian-Israeli ice hockey player
*
Eli C. D. Shortridge (1830–1908), Governor of North Dakota
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Eli Siegel (1902–1978), Latvian-American poet, critic and philosopher
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Eli Snyman (born 1996), Zimbabwe-born South African rugby union player
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Eli Soriano (1947-2021), televangelist from the Philippines
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Eli Stefansky (born 1971/72), American-Israeli lecturer
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Eli Stowers, American football player
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Eli Todd Tappan (1824–1888), American educator, mathematician, author, lawyer and newspaper editor
*
Eli Terry
Eli Terry Sr. (April 13, 1772 – February 24, 1852) was an inventor and clockmaker in Connecticut. He received a United States patent for a shelf clock mechanism. He introduced mass production to the art of clockmaking, which made clocks ...
(1772–1852), inventor and clockmaker in Connecticut
*
Eli Thayer (1819–1899), member of the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts
*
Eli "Lucky" Thompson (1924–2005), American jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist
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Eli Todd (1769–1833), pioneer in the treatment of the mentally ill in Connecticut
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Eli Velder (1925–2020), American academic
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Eli Walker (born 1992), Welsh rugby union player
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Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach ( ; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. Known for his character actor roles, his entertainment career spanned over six decades. He received a British Aca ...
(1915–2014), movie actor
*
Eli L. Whiteley (1913–1986), American awarded the Medal of Honor
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Eli Whitney (1765–1825), American inventor of the cotton gin
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Elie Wiesel
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates#1980, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel bibliogra ...
(אלי ויזל; Eliezer) (1928-2016), Romanian-born American human rights activist, Holocaust writer
*
Eli Wolf (born 1997), American football player
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Elihu Yale
Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British Americans, British-American Colonialism, colonial administrator.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Yale lived in America only as a child, and spent the rest of his life in England, Wales, a ...
(1649–1721), benefactor of Yale University, also known as "Eli Yale"
*
Eli Yatzpan (born 1965), Israeli television host and comedian
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Eli Yishai (, Eliyahu, born 1962), Israeli politician
*
Eli Zuckerman (born 1973), Israeli Olympic competitive sailor
Fictional characters
* Eli, on ''
Freaks and Geeks''
* Eli, from ''
Xena: Warrior Princess''
* Eli, the eponymous nomad from the 2009 film ''
The Book of Eli''
* Eli, in the Swedish novel ''
Let the Right One In''
* Eli Cash, in ''
The Royal Tenenbaums
''The Royal Tenenbaums'' is a 2001 American tragicomedy film directed by Wes Anderson and co-written with Owen Wilson. It stars Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, and Owen Wilson. ...
''
* Eli Clark, a survivor in the video game ''
Identity V''
*
Elijah "Eli" Dingle, on the British soap ''Emmerdale''
*Eli Ever, in novels by
V.E. Schwab
*Eli Gemstone, on ''
The Righteous Gemstones''
* Eli Gold, on ''
The Good Wife''
* Eli Loker, on ''
Lie to Me''
* Eli Mills, from the film ''
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom''
* Eli "Weevil" Navarro on ''
Veronica Mars
''Veronica Mars'' is an American teen neo-noir Mystery fiction, mystery Drama (film and television), drama television series created by screenwriter Rob Thomas (writer), Rob Thomas. The series is set in the fictional city, fictional town of Ne ...
''
* Eli Shane, in ''
Slugterra''
* Eli Stone, title character of the American show ''
Eli Stone
''Eli Stone'' is an American Legal drama, legal Musical film, musical comedy drama television series that was created by Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, who also served as executive producers alongside Ken Olin who directed the pilot, with M ...
''
* Eli Sunday, in ''
There Will Be Blood
''There Will Be Blood'' is a 2007 American epic film, epic historical drama, period drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, loosely based on the 1927 novel ''Oil!'' by Upton Sinclair. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kev ...
''
* Elias "Eli" Thompson, on the American television series ''
Boardwalk Empire''
* Eli Vance, in the ''
Half-Life Half-life is a mathematical and scientific description of exponential or gradual decay.
Half-life, half life or halflife may also refer to:
Film
* Half-Life (film), ''Half-Life'' (film), a 2008 independent film by Jennifer Phang
* ''Half Life: ...
'' video games
* Eli Vanto, in the novel ''
Star Wars: Thrawn''
* Eli Wallace, on ''
Stargate Universe''
* Eli Watkins, in ''
Oil!
* Eli, known as ''
Liquid Snake'', from video game franchise ''
Metal Gear Solid''
Surname
*
Billy Eli (born 1962), American singer and songwriter
*
Look Tin Eli (1870-1919), Chinese-American businessman
*
Roger Eli (born 1965), English former footballer
Scandinavian given name
Eli in Scandinavia can also be written as Øli or Ellen.
*
Eli Arnstad (born 1962), Norwegian civil servant and politician
*
Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (1911-2010), Danish professor and member of the Danish resistance movement
*
Eli Kristiansen (born 1933), Norwegian politician
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Eli Rygg (born 1955), Norwegian television personality
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Eli Skolmen Ryg (born 1936), Norwegian television producer
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Eli Sollied Øveraas (born 1949), Norwegian politician
Fictional characters
*
Eli Ayase, from the anime ''Love Live!''
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Eli James, a character from the ''Ghost Whisperer''
See also
*
Ely (surname)
*
Ely (given name)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eli (Name)
Unisex given names
Modern names of Hebrew origin
Jewish given names
English masculine given names
Masculine given names
Theophoric names