Yelisei
A Russian name with Hebrew roots, meaning "god is salvation". It barely registers in Poland: around 130 men carry it, and most Poles have never met one.
Yelisei Pronunciation
Yelisei is pronounced ih-e-lee-SE-ee (/ɨɛliˈsɛi/).
What Yelisei means
Where Yelisei comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Yelisei comes from the Hebrew name Elisha, meaning "God is salvation." In the Hebrew Bible, Elisha is the prophet who follows Elijah and asks for a double portion of his spirit. The name passed into Greek, then into Church Slavonic, and settled in Russian as Елисей. Polish readers meet it through that Russian line.
Its best-known bearer in Russian is a prince in a poem. Pushkin gave the name to Korolevich Yelisei, the hero who searches for a sleeping princess and questions the wind until he finds her. Russian children have read that story for almost two centuries. The name arrives with a rescuer attached. In the Orthodox calendar, the prophet Elisha is commemorated on 14 June.
The meaning stayed close to its Hebrew root. Elisha meant "God is salvation," and Yelisei holds the same sense. The name is rare in Poland. It has no Polish diminutive, so it stays whole. On a Warsaw class register, Yelisei sits among the Jakubs and Szymons as a visitor, and the visitor's name is old and plain: God is salvation.
How many people are named Yelisei
1 in 162948 men in Poland is named Yelisei. 131 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2914 among male names.
Yelisei's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.