Alisha

Alisha reaches Polish name registers by way of English, and its roots run back to Hebrew. English speakers took it up as a variant of Alicia, and from that link it gathered the sense of "noble." That reading came later, attached through Alicia rather than born with the name.

The Hebrew side points elsewhere, toward a person protected by God. Polish parents meet this as chroniona przez boga, and it sits a little apart from the English "noble." Two meanings, one name.

Alisha has no Polish diminutive of its own. It stays whole on the class register, four syllables, easy to read during the first roll call in September. A child named Alisha will likely spend years spelling it for clerks, since the h keeps surprising Polish ears. The name that "noble" describes still answers, first, to a Hebrew sense of being kept safe.