Meaning & Origin
Dido, queen of Carthage.
Elissa is a girl's baby name of Greek origin, from the ancient Greek Elissa, another name for Dido — the legendary Phoenician queen who founded Carthage and became Aeneas' tragic love in Virgil's Aeneid. It may also derive from the Hebrew Elisheva (Elizabeth) meaning 'God is my oath.'
Elissa has genuine mythological weight — she was queen, founder of cities, and the embodiment of passionate love and dignified death in one of Rome's greatest epics. As a variant of Eliza or Elizabeth, it carries that heritage more lightly, offering classical elegance without the full mythological burden.