ELIZA

Eliza is a feminine given name, most often a diminutive of Elizabeth. It stems from the Hebrew Elisheba, meaning “God is my oath,” and has been widely used in English-speaking countries. The name has appeared in literature and theatre, most famously as Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower seller who becomes a refined lady in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and in the musical My Fair Lady.

In computer science, ELIZA refers to an early natural language processing program created by Joseph Weizenbaum at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the 1960s. ELIZA used pattern matching and scripted responses to simulate conversation, most famously in the DOCTOR script that mimicked a Rogerian psychotherapist. Although capable of engaging users, ELIZA did not understand the content of the dialogue, illustrating both the power and the limits of computer-generated interaction and prompting debate about artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction.

Eliza remains a common given name today, with several notable people bearing the name, including actress Eliza Dushku and Australian actress Eliza Taylor. The name appears across popular culture and can be found in fiction, film, and music as a recognizable character name.