"a keeper of archives or records," 1753, a native formation or else from Medieval Latin or Italian archivista or French archiviste (see archives + -ist).
Entries linking to archivist
archives n.
c. 1600, "records or documents preserved as evidence," from French archif (16c., Modern French archives), from Late Latin archivum (plural archiva) "written records," also the place where they are kept, from Greek ta arkheia "public records," plural of arkheion "town hall, public building," from arkhē "government," literally "beginning, origin, first place" (verbal noun of arkhein "to be the first;" see archon). The sense of "place where public records and historical documents are kept" in English is from 1640s.
-ist
word-forming element meaning "one who does or makes," also used to indicate adherence to a certain doctrine or custom, from French -iste and directly from Latin -ista (source also of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian -ista), from Greek agent-noun ending -istes, which is from -is-, ending of the stem of verbs in -izein, + agential suffix -tes.
Variant -ister (as in chorister, barrister) is from Old French -istre, on false analogy of ministre. Variant -ista is from Spanish, popularized in American English 1970s by names of Latin-American revolutionary movements.