Lise
Meaning
“God is my oath (short form of Elisabeth); famously borne by Lise Meitner, physicist who co-discovered nuclear fission”
The story
Lise is Elisabeth pared down to a single soft syllable, a short form long favored in Denmark, France and Germany that keeps the Hebrew original's meaning, God is my oath. Its great bearer is Lise Meitner, the Austrian physicist who spent three decades at the forefront of nuclear research, fled Nazi Germany in 1938, and that same winter, working with her nephew Otto Frisch, explained the physics of nuclear fission. The Nobel committee honored her collaborator Otto Hahn alone, an omission scientists still argue about; element 109, meitnerium, was later named for her, an apology written into the periodic table. In American records Lise has always been a rarity, only beginning to register in the most recent decade, which leaves it feeling fresh and quietly formidable: tiny, European, and attached to one of the great overlooked careers in physics.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Lise has stayed rare in US records the whole time: no peak decade to name.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
765 people · the #9,957 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 250,000 · median age 26
Among people named Lise living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 180 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Lise
Most people given the name Lise in the United States were born between 1950 and 1979. The Lise you meet today is most often in her 50s or 60s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Lise deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Lise truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Lise fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Does Lise fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Lise to your family’s tree →