Живой ( jee-voi ) is also a Russian word that means alive. Or in case of Жива ( jee-va ) it is a feminine gender of the present tense.

Gyvas ( Gee-vas ) is the same cognate in Lithuanian. And same as in Russian, Gyva is the feminine gender of the same word.

The root of the word comes down to us all the way from PIE

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_language [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language

Jeeva is a telugu[1] word, which is actually pronounced 'jee-vaa' athough Jeev does mean a living thing in Hindi. It's easily to get confused with less popular Indian languages as being Hindi words because it's more popular, although they're similar because they're all derived from Sanskrit.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_language

To add, Jeeva means living thing in Malayalam, another language from the south India. In fact, Jeeva is a common name in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, two states from the south India.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam

Very interesting, thanks. I know a South African family of Indian descent with that last name. They're the only Muslim family I've met with that name so I've wondered about its roots.

Indeed I was. TMYK